Pathway to Japanese Literature

(I)

Just beyond the gate lay a rustic vista unchanged for decades—fields stretching endlessly under mountains veiled in pale blue air. In this landscape, Chiyoko’s family had lived for nearly twenty years. The doting father and rational mother were both so neurotically determined never to stray from moral principles that one might think they would—yet they were neither irrational nor emotional enough to actually do so. Both parents were skilled in calligraphy, songs, poetry, and prose; the father had been proficient in sculpture since his youth and even kept sketches presentable to others. Chiyoko’s household, which had long maintained a life blending classical traditions with unprecedented modernity, possessed a complexity of thought that outsiders found nearly impossible to imagine.

Chiyoko, with a mind given to emotional, willful imaginings in the most unexpected places, lived surrounded by her two parents and servants in a life of luxurious self-importance.

In her eight-mat room where three walls stood fortified by bookcases like castle ramparts—with Dante’s statue on the desk, a peacock-feathered doll, and Utamaro’s paintings adorning the space—Chiyoko would lean back in a relaxed rattan chair whenever free, reading, writing, or lost in thought. Though affecting indifference toward her appearance, Chiyoko—with her myriad preferences and convoluted emotions—would sometimes grow so nostalgically bewildered by bygone days, or agonize over philosophical matters she knew herself constitutionally unable to grasp, that her parents deemed her a peculiar child. Yet she would smile faintly in a manner suggesting profound depths, steadfast in trusting her own heart. Chiyoko possessed, if anything, a mannish forehead incongruous with her stocky build—not plump but angular—paired with nervous eyes and hands sporting unusually small nails. Her facial expressions shifted with conspicuous intensity as a rule, yet when she laughed, it always engulfed her entire countenance. Not that she wholly disregarded grooming, but she paid little mind to her hair—invariably parted down the middle and swept to both sides. She habitually declared that rather than gaudy kimonos, she preferred wearing stylish Meisen silk robes beneath crepe haori jackets, savoring the soft suppleness of Omeshi silk against her skin.

Around Chiyoko, who didn’t dislike people, many individuals came and went.

Just as a queen might recall each courtier by name only during an audience, there was not a single person who made Chiyoko think about them even momentarily or make sure she wouldn't forget them—they merely revolved around her in distant orbits. Among them were just three people who formed a tight circle around Chiyoko: Shinobu of Iidamachi, her cousin Mr. Minamoto, and Engineer H—these were the individuals present.

Shinobu was still a truly young and sheltered young master, having lost both parents and now being cared for by what amounted to Chiyoko’s uncle’s household. Chiyoko knew he was one of those youths typical of his age—not yet twenty-one and already infatuated with love itself. She read all too clearly that this timid, socially inexperienced young man was only engaging in pretend courtship toward her, motivated by her being both the most convenient target and slightly different from ordinary women. "How sweet to be in love with love itself while it lasts!" she thought. Yet whenever she saw his trembling eyes or how he flushed at trivial matters, he struck her as something utterly unpolished and unsightly.

Mr. Minamoto, her serious and sensible cousin, cared for Chiyoko with an almost peculiar intensity despite their familial relation,

“Take care of yourself, study hard.” It was this man who spoke so incessantly that Chiyoko grew weary of listening and made a scowling face. Though Cousin Minamoto concealed as much as possible the emotions lurking in his heart’s deepest recesses toward this woman he felt compelled to guide, Chiyoko had come to perceive them unbeknownst to him. Engineer H was the sort of man whose way of speaking—never alienating those worldly souls acquainted with hardship—revealed his own understanding of struggle. He had graduated school two years prior, immediately gone abroad, returned due to illness, and now convalesced at home while attending only to necessities—a precisely thirty-year-old man of nervous constitution and frail health, possessing a pale distinguished forehead and exceptionally thick hair that lent him a gentle appearance.

Chiyoko harbored special sympathy and feelings toward H. H—who often listened silently to others’ conversations, always spoke in a rounded resonant voice when he did talk, and possessed considerable skill in vocal music—was well-liked by most people: by Chiyoko’s family as a trusted confidant for her sharp-minded mother, and by Chiyoko herself as someone who taught her many things. H had begun frequenting this household around summer two years prior when he started assisting with the father’s busy work, and by that winter—

“When we first had the pleasure of meeting, we were both so formal with each other, weren’t we?”

H—a bachelor managing both domestic and external affairs to such an extent—would consult even the minutest economic matters with the mother.

On a night when the wintry wind raged with such desolation and the pale moon shone like liquid water, they had talked until nearing dawn. Chiyoko’s father—a jovial soul wearied by daytime bustle who grew drowsy come nightfall— “The joy of aging is finding sleep delightful, I tell ya! I’ll pass on staying up—if I doze off here, you’ll scold me, Madam…” He jestingly bent his back in an exaggerated manner, adopting an elderly air as he retreated to the bedroom.

The three of them sat in the tightly shut Western-style room, watching the stove’s flames glow red, their hearts as unburdened as those living in a specially crafted country.

As their conversation shifted from one topic to another, Chiyoko—prone to excitement—found herself tearing up at each ordinary word they spoke, as though every syllable seeped into the depths of her heart. H and her mother talked about their younger days,

“Truly, this person here is fortunate,” she said, “what with her spending all day reading and writing to the point people say ‘How troublesome!’—she probably hasn’t felt so much as a drop of midwinter water’s chill.” Having said this, the mother looked at her daughter—bundled up in layers, her face bearing a prosperous look as she swung her legs carelessly. “Truly, Miss Chiyoko here is fortunate—don’t you agree, Madam? Could there be anyone in this world who doesn’t experience sorrow or hardship…?”

H said with a look as if he had suddenly remembered something—or as if a raw nerve had been touched. “Why, of course there isn’t, you know—no matter how wealthy or noble someone might be, such things must exist. It’s precisely because there are sad and painful things that happy, enjoyable matters can arise, you know. Don’t you agree?” “Mr. H, didn’t you teach me the same thing back when I said I was unbearably bored? That being able to feel things strongly—whether happy or sad—is what makes one truly happy. Even Mother would agree—I truly believe that. Living with emotions as parched as a mummy’s would be utterly pointless, don’t you think? There’s meaning in life precisely because there are so many joys and their opposites—what a...”

“You’ve never truly known hardship, so you think enduring sorrow and pain can be done as casually as yawning. When it actually comes down to facing it, only someone with an exceptionally strong will and rational mind could endure it—at best, someone like you would lose your senses the moment you encountered such things.” “That’s exactly right, isn’t it? Though someone like me has grown quite accustomed to sorrow since childhood, there are still times when trivial matters vex me—proof enough that my mind hasn’t been properly tempered, you see.”

“I’ve had so many hardships myself that I even became a Christian—though I’ve realized ‘the world is a mass of suffering—yet because it exists, good things can too,’ my half-baked realizations shatter all too quickly.”

H formed an unnatural smile on his hardened lips. "If it's something you can share, then out with it already—you've confided plenty in us before." The mother spoke solicitously to this still-young man weighed down by hardships.

“Yes, shall I let you hear it? Though Madam might not particularly favor such matters…” “It’s no trouble at all—do speak up. Being somewhat older than you, I may even muster sympathy befitting my years.”

“Well, thank you. Then please listen.” “Well—it’s like this, you see. Though it feels strange to say myself, there was a woman I’d been engaged to for five whole years.” “That would be two years ago now—when I fell ill and was hospitalized, during which time she married someone else without so much as a word of explanation, let alone asking ‘How are you?’, as if she’d forgotten everything that came before.” “And you see, Madam—isn’t that how it goes? If there’d been truly unavoidable circumstances, who could say anything? I surely must have encouraged her myself—if she thought marrying him would bring happiness—” “And yet she—just because she wanted to live a gilded life in splendor—ignored her parents’ attempts to stop her and all their warnings, going off to some rich man’s place.” “Whether she married or not is beside the point—five whole years is quite a long time, don’t you think? To think that all that time, the woman I’d trusted with all my heart had such… such tawdry, shallow notions—it’s truly beyond words—”

H— “If she had found happiness in that, I would have rejoiced—but that’s not how it turned out. She came to you under false pretenses, that’s what it was.” “Being glared at by everyone she meets—for a woman who’d never experienced such treatment before, it must be excruciating.” “Now I hear she’s taken to sending letters full of unpleasant feelings to her mother’s place—having fallen into some dark pit she can’t climb out of, there she is weeping and thrashing about in a situation beyond saving... And then today, of all days, I ran into her.” “Dressed in flashy clothes yet looking as lifeless as a corpse, you know…”

H walked about the room with bowed head while speaking in a low voice. Chiyoko shed tears copiously as she spoke, “Oh, what a dreadful person! If I were you, I’d curse her with my entire being—how can someone like that even keep living…” she exclaimed as if personally affected, her face flushing crimson. “Truly now—though such things may be common in this world, I never imagined they could befall you. So you’ve remained alone all this time?” “But you should marry someone who’d return your affections……”

The mother did not seem particularly surprised, nor did she display any extraordinary sympathy. Such an attitude was partly a product of the year’s influence, and a mother who neither paid much attention to the psychology of those who had undergone such experiences—let alone having any such experiences herself—could not fully comprehend it. When Chiyoko uttered the word “woman,” she had always wished that women would be those who pledged themselves to lives that, while tender-hearted, possessed a certain steely resolve—women whose convictions were believable enough to remain alone until death if they failed in this. If one couldn’t endure being alone until death—if one lacked that very strength—then Chiyoko preferred women who, like O-Shichi, could thoughtlessly remake the world into one shared solely between themselves and a man, driven by nothing but passion.

The woman whose eyes were dazzled by gold's blinding glare. The woman who abandoned the man agonizing between life and death, seizing this precise moment as her opportunity.

As she thought this, that woman’s face—which she had never even seen—became a congealed mass of hatred and fury, warping into something monstrously foul that danced before her eyes. “What a loathsome creature! To think… that such a person exists among women—my own kind—it leaves me utterly paralyzed, truly…” “This doesn’t concern you in the slightest.” “That may be true, but don’t you feel the same, Mother?”

“What kind of blood and brain matter must she have? Even dogs and cats would refuse the flesh she’s made of.” “That was improper of me—this wasn’t a matter to discuss where you’re present—but I simply…” “Ha—she turns peculiar at the faintest provocation, you understand…”

Overwrought, Chiyoko listened absently to their conversation as if hearing it from afar. "You poor soul—why must it be this way? I’ve grown so fond of what you said earlier—now I like you twice as much as yesterday."

Chiyoko said, her face swollen. “Are you sympathizing with me?” “Thank you truly.” “But please don’t get too worked up—after all, these matters are proof that I was a foolish young master, and I’m not so helpless as to meet such misfortune again…”

As if compelled by sad resignation, H formed a strained smile.

“Madam—if an ordinary man reaching my age were abandoned by some woman, he’d forget her straightaway. And aren’t there plenty of worldly men who’d repeat such folly?” “But I simply cannot do that. When I first glimpsed what women are, they showed me the most disgraceful—an almost unprecedented disgrace.” “That is precisely what makes it noble.” “If this woman discards you, you move to another—if that one fails, then the next—there are indeed those who descend into such depravity. But men—why, their punishment for such things isn’t nearly as severe as women’s, you know.” “If you were to completely forget that and go marry someone to put everyone at ease, it would be all the better.” “Having such an experience once would keep you from being so easily deceived by women, you know.”

“If I were to be with someone, it would only be when I find someone I truly desire. Until then, I’d rather live alone as a scholar.” “But even when young people think well of each other, mistakes are prone to happen—it’s an age where emotions override everything…” “Still, if both are earnest—so much so they’d abandon all else—how much happier they would make each other.”

Chiyoko abruptly cut in and compared their faces. "But you see—once society progresses, everything ends up advancing in such peculiar ways," "In my daughter's time, arguing with one's mother was unthinkable—but you've truly become such a precarious person." "What do you mean by 'precarious'?" "Tell me—do you truly see me as such a precarious, reckless fool—" "Mother is worried, you see. Since your feelings and Mother's are completely at odds, you'll occasionally end up misunderstanding each other."

“Do you really think so…?” Chiyoko had been silently watching the flames when suddenly—

“Oh—aren’t they beautiful! Truly!”

she exclaimed. “What?”

“The flames—oh, how beautifully they’re burning! It’s as if someone in a bright red kimono might emerge.” “You—this is exactly what I mean! Dwelling on such things is pointless—nothing but a waste of nerves. No matter how often I tell you to stop, you persist. If you must think about it, at least keep silent—yet there you go, abruptly bringing it up again! Really now!” “Why must you say such things—just for today?” “If everyone could just stop worrying about money and kimonos like I do, they’d feel this wonderful too. Honestly, I can’t tell whether I’m the odd one or if it’s the rest of the world that’s strange.”

Chiyoko flew into a rage and said in a loud voice.

“You shouldn’t say such things—she’s worried about you, you know…” “Well I know that, but if I’m happier or more beautiful than others, surely there’s no cause for concern…” “That’s not how it is.” “Parents—when their child is happy, they worry they might be *too* happy; if told they’re beautiful, they fret they might be *too* beautiful—that’s just how parents are.” “You should at least listen gratefully—as for me, I’ve never even dreamed of being worried over by parents—how unfortunate I am.”

While taking Chiyoko’s side, H spoke thus, careful not to slight her mother’s feelings. Since Chiyoko was not so obtuse as to miss this nuance,

“Yes… well,” Though she had sidestepped with an ambiguous reply, H’s familiar manner of speech and his somewhat understanding grasp of her feelings—combined with what had just occurred—struck Chiyoko as profoundly comforting and delightful. And she herself kept turning these thoughts over in her mind.

I really am still young. Even if H said such things—once you reach your thirties, you probably don’t feel anything earnestly—but even if he pretends to be worldly, he still seems inexperienced in society.

Chiyoko, as if single-handedly taking on her mother’s silence, posed various questions to H. H said in a low, firm voice, as if admonishing. “You should stop dwelling on such things.” “You should take such worldly matters lightly—everyone does. If things considered lightly work out even slightly, they approach true understanding. For invisible matters—those you can’t grasp even when pondered—you must sweep them aside carelessly; otherwise, one couldn’t go on living.”

“Thinking carelessly is something I utterly despise.” “If I think earnestly or consult others, I can reach ideas that come close to satisfying me—and such joy is truly—” “That may be—but when you think too hard without understanding, there come times you’d want to vanish into mountains or receive invitations from Kegon Falls—you know.” “Isn’t that right? Someone your age should stay more carefree—you’ll turn into nothing but a head on legs.”

H found it far from desirable that Chiyoko was thinking such things. He had known that should this nervous, emotional woman become absorbed in philosophical matters, nothing good would come of it in the end. Yet only that night did what Chiyoko had said lodge itself clearly in his mind.

“Hey Mr. H—what do you think of recent literature? I personally don’t find it all that excessively indulgent or undisciplined. Modern literature—I detest it. That’s why she keeps saying this daughter mustn’t get swept up by it or anything.” “It’s quite a difficult matter, isn’t it?” “That’s exactly it. The other day when I was reading D’Annunzio’s *Triumph of Death*, Mother said she wanted to borrow it, so I lent it to her. Then she went on, ‘Is *this* what’s celebrated nowadays? Writing such things—no wonder modern literature is detestable! From the very content itself, it’s distasteful!’ So that’s why, don’t you think?”

Chiyoko explained, as it seemed H couldn’t quite grasp how such a conversation had arisen from topics that had so little connection to what came before.

“Ah, so that’s why.” “I can’t claim to fully understand it myself, but as living conditions grow increasingly complex, all daily occurrences seem to take on increasingly vivid hues—crime, luxury, everything truly appears that way. And human psychological states become like finely faceted glass. Thus emotions should grow ever keener—what one feels and writes all becomes sharply penetrating things of deep color.” “Therefore, emotions and matters we who were born in much older times could never imagine are emerging in literature as well—hence why it must seem so exposed and carry such a striking impact…”

“Is that really so? That what’s-his-name’s *Triumph of Death* completely disregards morality, doesn’t it? And then—if a man loves a woman, shouldn’t he just love her wholeheartedly? Yet there he is, peering at his own woman from every angle, getting delighted or angry all by himself—hardly suitable reading for a young lady, don’t you think?” “I said the same thing back then too, you know.”

Chiyoko said in a voice that sounded as though she were declaring something futile no matter how many times she repeated it—a voice tinged with slight strain. “If literature were something flawless from a moral perspective—or any perspective—and could be shown to anyone without issue, then it would undoubtedly be a perfectly refined work. But humans are rarely like that, you see? And since each person harbors their own unique emotions and traits, achieving such a state proves exceedingly difficult.” “Even if one were to write a biography of Lord Confucius or a chronicle of Jesus’s life—those materials are flawless from any perspective, you see—but if the resulting work is unsuccessful, then it holds no true value as pure literature.” “Rather than writing poorly about Confucius’s texts, creating an excellent work about Benten Kozō would hold greater value.” “Even when committing theft, there’s a particular sensation in the act—and when stealing another man’s wife, one must harbor special emotions about it too, don’t they? So if those nuanced sensations are keenly observed and written so vividly that the emotions described seep into your heart until they nearly become your own—*that* can be viewed as splendid creative work. You see? Writing that acutely conveys feeling, passages that make you ponder deeply—that’s what I believe pure literature to be. Such things are truly difficult to achieve! Even if Chikamatsu’s plays can’t be shown to daughters on moral grounds, they still hold value as pure literature. I absolutely rejoice in works with literary merit—yet Mother strongly disapproves of everything I say.” “But I do think so…”

“I can’t definitively say which is which—since I haven’t read any recent novels at all or given them proper consideration—it’s not something I can casually remark upon…”

H said in a low voice while deeply pondering something. Chiyoko disliked that vague answer. “Then what do you think?” “Like my way? Mother’s way? Or something entirely different…” “I’m thinking of very ordinary things.” “If you don’t stray too far from the norm, I wouldn’t quibble over this or that—because in worldly matters, it’s essential to proceed with some degree of conformity…”

“If that’s your view, then it must be an excellent stance to take as a mediator between Mother and me—huh?”

Chiyoko felt as if the dregs of everything she had pondered all day had accumulated in a corner of her head, making it grow heavy and tilt to one side. The clock already showed past two. Mother—who had herself raised the topic of conversation—leaned against a corner chair with her pale face tilted, dozing off in apparent comfort.

“Hey Mr. H, doesn’t Mother look exactly like someone devoid of carefree thoughts when you see her doing such things?”

While looking at her mother’s calm face, Chiyoko said. “The problem is you view Mother and everything too critically—that’s why what she does seems strangely unpleasant or foolish to you……” “Do you think so…”

Chiyoko gave an absentminded reply while twisting three or so strands of hair that had fallen before her eyes. Suddenly, her fingertips trembled as if seized, and an inexplicable round thing began rolling through her mind.

“Mr. H—I like you terribly much tonight. I don’t know why, but—let’s sleep now. If I stay up any longer than this, my eyes will be hollow tomorrow…” “Then let us sleep. You ought to wake Mother gently—there’s a good girl.”

Chiyoko woke her mother—who seemed pleasantly drowsy—and led her to the bedroom. Then she returned, “Let’s turn off the gas and sleep. There’s a candle in your room. I need to undo my hair now, so please go ahead—” “Ah—I suppose I’m the one who stirred you up today? You’ll pardon me, won’t you?” “Really now—must you say such things? Are you free tomorrow?” “Will you draft here again?”

“I’ll do it here—well, there’s not much time left—I’ll do it—” They lit the candlestick, and Chiyoko combed her hair with a gleaming white comb beside the faint light. When she let down her tied-up hair behind her back and turned around, H was performing his usual bedtime prayer. Waiting for the prayer to end, Chiyoko,

“Good night, and I’m sorry for keeping you up so late, you know.”

she said in a quiet tone. When she locked the door, H— “Don’t think about anything and sleep well,” he said tenderly, lightly placing his hand on Chiyoko’s back. Chiyoko went to the dark room, and H to the one faintly glowing red through the candle’s glass—they parted with entirely different feelings.

(II)

Even after changing into her nightclothes and getting into bed, the pillow’s feathers had clumped into hard lumps and the blanket lay tangled, leaving Chiyoko unable to settle her mind. Thinking she had to sleep, she closed her eyes, only for multicolored lights to dance and swirl across her vision through her thin eyelids. Amid the clamorous din ringing in her ears, no sooner had Header’s lines resonated in Uraji’s voice than Ganjiro’s Kamiji’s voice—clinging like vines—began to reverberate. Fragments from books she had considered good up until now rose jaggedly to the surface.

The grievances and questions that had accumulated in Chiyoko’s mind spilled out, lining up one after another—each one declaring "Heh heh... What a fraud..." before retreating, until she found herself at a loss for what to do next. Abruptly sitting up in bed, she reached out her hand and drank the cold tea placed on the table. "It's as if I'm doing exactly what an old person would do."

Chiyoko spoke as if laughing at herself, and in the dim electric light, upon seeing her plump bosom and toned arms, she inadvertently let out a laugh. In the pale purple glow, her figure clad in a pink nightgown—playing with her hair amidst white bedding—seemed lovelier and more beautiful than her usual self. Fragments neither song nor poem, woven through with beautiful words, came slipping out one after another. Mindful of her parents sleeping next door, she repeated them in whispers while glancing at the small luminous clock by her pillow. The long and short hands—charged with marking time’s passage through their mysteriously evocative sounds—showed the short hand at four while the long hand stretched far past midnight’s midpoint.

"If I wait a little longer, I'll get up."

Chiyoko muttered to herself and buried her cheek in the fluffy down pillow. While handling the tassel at the end of the thick cord cinching her nightgown’s waist in her palm, she lost herself in wild fantasies. “The surroundings are quiet; I can think whatever I please without restraint; the futon is soft and warm—” Chiyoko found these thoughts utterly delightful, and an irrepressible laugh kept rising to her cheeks. When happy, Chiyoko let out a light sigh as she always did and gently embraced her chest. Sometimes she would act with the composed air of a woman who knew the ways of the world; other times she would adopt the haughty demeanor of a queen; and yet other times, as now, she would make gestures that traced supple, delicate curves entirely befitting a young woman—all these were among Chiyoko’s characteristic habits.

"He said he'll be drafting in that room tomorrow, and I should just write the continuation." "Mother will manage with her sewing and chanting and reading books—Father will go to his office…" "I'll make milk sweets at teatime and give them to H with hot coffee." With childlike innocence unburdened by guilt over imagined sins yet buoyant with anticipation—Chiyoko envisioned tomorrow’s tasks—her own duties alongside those of Mother and Father—picturing how H would draw crisp lines across white paper on his drafting table with satisfying precision while she herself transcribed restrained emotions seeping from her heart into words beside him at their marble table adorned with roses—even mentally tracing how light would color their faces then. Chiyoko—who typically stayed up through dawn only to sleep late—now wished solely for this night’s faint brightness to arrive early; yearning for tomorrow’s eyes—which she greeted with such joy—to open swiftly while drawing back curtains patterned boldly enough to match her mood.

The scenery outside, dimly brightened like the eyelids of a child stirring awake, held a gentleness, contemplative depth, and nobility that Chiyoko—habitually sleepyheaded—had rarely experienced until now. As if grazed by spiritual ether, as if some monumental truth had been implanted in her mind, Chiyoko stared transfixed at the vista beyond. Before this rarely witnessed majestic backdrop emerged the Nymphs and Satyrs perpetually sketched in her imagination—their lithe forms dancing forth from leafy shadows with ethereal steps. Apollo’s silver strings resonated purely while bells from sunken depths of unknowable valleys harmonized into exquisite music; mountain *sanrō combed golden tresses as they sang—all coalescing into an imagined scroll of serene beauty unfurling before Chiyoko’s eyes.

Tears streaming down her face, Chiyoko knelt; her joy came surging in like tidal waves.

Immersing her body in the mystical hues of dawn, she prostrated herself, giving thanks and praise to unseen things. While staring fixedly upward, Chiyoko stood up.

Wrapping her faintly trembling body—quivering with an indescribable thrill of joy in her chest—in a pale pink nightgown with long tassels and snug white tabi socks, coiling her long-combed hair around her neck, she lit the celadon candlestick. Even unlocking the room’s exit with its silver-glinting key and seeing the corridor cast in tree shadows felt supremely delightful. Having come partway, Chiyoko loosened the coiled hair, hid her face with half of it, held the light ahead, and walked with shuffling steps.

Walking through such a place in such attire and such a state of mind at such a time felt like a punctuation mark inserted into a prolonged stage scene.

She wanted to utter a single fitting, perfectly balanced word. But rather than uttering some trivial, all-too-human words and ruining everything, Chiyoko stood before the Western-style room, silently clutching her surging chest.

A pale red light flickered inside the glass; a black human figure remained motionless; a soft singing voice seeped through the door’s gap.

“Oh…” Chiyoko was so overjoyed that he was doing something that harmonized so perfectly with her current mood—leaving no room to question whether others still slept or to consider what song he sang—that she felt utterly elated. She gently opened it with a handle that shone like opal. In the pale blue dawn light streaming in stood a lamp crowned with a pink shade while crimson flames flickered from freshly colored firewood as if performing rites. On the thick carpet lay a purple cushion where H sat carefreely singing as he watched the fire. The shell buttons on his chest glinted broadly while his navy-and-brown-striped nightgown—identical in cut to Chiyoko’s—billowed softly at the back.

As if having forgotten to extinguish the candle, Chiyoko stood frozen in place. H abruptly turned around and said with a surprised look. “What’s happened? At this hour—” “I couldn’t sleep.” “Can’t sleep? I couldn’t either. That’s why I’ve been sitting here like this since earlier.” “Yes, but what a lovely dawn it is, isn’t it? In my room, I’ve been thinking of all sorts of things and feeling delighted since earlier.” Chiyoko said in a buoyant voice, as though she had completely forgotten that one must sleep at night. And then, bringing Rashia’s footstool near the fire, she sat down on it and neatly aligned her two feet—wrapped in white fur—in a small, composed manner. The pink kimono flowed smoothly and gently, its tassel clusters forming an artistic composition of colors and shapes alongside H’s brown-and-navy striped ones. For a while, the two remained silent, listening to the crackling of the firewood.

“Will you tire yourself out tomorrow?”

H inquired in a carefully considered tone. “Such a thing couldn’t possibly happen! You know—I was just thinking the same earlier—since you’ve made me feel this dawn’s joy more deeply than ever before, I thought I’d prepare something special for you at tea time, you see.” “It’s quite a foolish notion really, but I did give it proper thought earlier.” “Thank you—but truly now—you’re overexciting me, you know.” “Since I’m happy right now—please stop saying such things—really! I’m so truly happy—I scarcely know what to do with myself.”

“Ah well—those surrounded by happiness can still find joy even when facing minor unpleasantness, you see.” “Though it may sound odd coming from me—will you answer what I ask?” “If it’s within permissible bounds…” “Then tell me—what sort of man do you think I am?” “What sort—well, I consider you someone rather emotional and sensitive by nature who deliberately maintains an unaffected composure.” “And in this world, aren’t there things one must either conquer or become utterly captivated by?” “Someone who conquers most matters—even when forcing themselves or teetering on being enthralled—they must subjugate them to feel satisfied; someone who loves life fiercely yet remains deeply susceptible to sorrow—if I’m not mistaken—”

“Does it appear that way? Then... do you like me?” “Or do you dislike me?” “Even someone I like—depending on my mood at the time—I might not even want to look their way—so I can’t say definitively—but like remains like.” “Do you like me?” “Yes, certainly—but if you keep pressing with ‘Do you like me? Do you?’ like that—I might come to dislike you—”

Chiyoko laughed as she said this. "Why would you ask that?" Her lips still holding a trace of laughter. "No particular reason—just wanted to ask." "I see..."

The firewood began burning even more vigorously than before. Both H’s and Chiyoko’s faces glowed red, while their eyes, hands, and features—still untouched by worldly concerns—appeared far whiter and purer in the dawnlight than they ever did during the grimy daylight. "My hands are rather cold, you see."

Chiyoko slightly pulled out her white, roundish hand from her long sleeve and said. “Let me see. “Truly, I’ve been forsaken by God. ‘Dear Heavenly God, please hear my prayer—from now on I will certainly not stay up late or read too much, so please warm these cold hands of mine.’” Mr. H made a light, playful gesture and briefly kissed the back of Chiyoko’s hand that was resting in his.

“Will that prayer be answered? How utterly dubious!” Chiyoko remarked as though it were nothing. For Chiyoko—who upon waking each morning would first have her forehead kissed by her father, then by her mother, before settling into her daily work—even H’s kiss struck her as nothing more than an older person’s jest.

The pale blue light of dawn gradually took on a reddish tinge, and the windowpanes began to sparkle. The room grew so hot from the sun’s warmth and the firewood’s crimson glow that it felt almost suffocating. Chiyoko found it truly painful that this dawn—so joyful and so mystical—was giving way to clamorous daytime. “Mr. H and young mistress, the bath is ready.”

Beginning with the maid—her Western-style bun slipping down her forehead—thrusting her bovine neck out from the window to speak, the ethereal, beautiful thoughts that had surrounded Chiyoko began fracturing apart.

“Yes.” After giving a disinterested reply, she then—as if truly reluctant—

“It’s daytime again, isn’t it? The time has come for me to put a mask over my heart.”

With that, she kicked the hem of her nightgown.

Even though Chiyoko hadn’t slept a wink in the bath chamber, washing her face and hands struck her as some contrived, absurd ritual. Her earlier emotions seemed scrubbed away by the soap bubbles clinging to her wrists with their prismatic glow, leaving something as fragmented and weatherworn as a tiled roof seen up close—full of gaps and crumbling edges.

The morning was spent idling away on trivial matters; from afternoon onward, with Mr. H occupied and Chiyoko caught up in her writing until dinner, they passed an uneventful day as usual, with no conversation arising.

At dinner time, since Father was delayed at a meeting, Mother sat in his usual seat and ate while— “Now, Mr. H—my husband had mentioned that since things were getting busier and coming and going late at night was rather troublesome—it being just a matter of one or two months anyway—it would be better for you to stay here permanently. I also said that would be preferable.—That’s acceptable, isn’t it?” “Is that so? But wouldn’t that trouble you—even someone like me…”

“How could that possibly be an issue? Now comply—I’ve already decided!” “In that case, I’ll accept your arrangement—though it pains me to impose…” “Yes, yes, it’s absolutely no trouble.”

It appeared that while Chiyoko remained unaware, her father had made such arrangements, and from that very day H came to stay permanently. Chiyoko listened to this conversation with a vaguely ticklish sensation.

(III)

Day after day, H and Chiyoko spent their time doing the same sorts of things as they had that day. They spent all of December passing their days in debates, reading away, writing away, and so forth.

On a day nearing year’s end, Mr. H said this to Chiyoko: “Don’t you think solitary souls are pitiable? If they don’t tend to their New Year kimono themselves, there’s no one else to do it for them.” Chiyoko—listening with creases gathering at her eyes’ corners—said while rolling a crimson pen across manuscript paper: “How tragic—this year you could simply have Mother handle it, couldn’t you? Then you wouldn’t need to go through the trouble of fabricating a man either.”

“But even removing the basting stitches from a freshly tailored kimono feels so novel—don’t you think even a man like me harbors rather delicate emotions?” “Comparatively, yes… But if you return to Okitsu, Mother will be there, so…” “Once this is settled, I’ll make a quick trip—I’ll visit Chikugyū’s grave for sure, and send you a postcard!” “Why you’ve restricted yourself to postcards—you’re being overly considerate about such trivial matters. After all, since Mother will open it regardless of me, whether it’s a letter or a postcard makes no difference, does it?”

“Truly, your mother is more strict and neurotic than others, isn’t she?” “Oh, absolutely—she’s someone whose emotions might as well be measured with a ruler and compass for each side’s length, and what’s more, she’s someone who lives in terror of letters and phone calls…” “In any case, it’s certain that no matter who observes it, her emotions stand diametrically opposed to yours.” “I can’t declare you right or Mother wrong, you see—it’s simply how you’re each constituted…”

“Emotional clashes aren’t really supposed to exist between mother and daughter, but because I’m so headstrong, sometimes they even flare up like this.” “Still now—as your duty—you must remain obedient to Mother… As a woman of considerable learning and cultivated common sense—” “Yes I know that! But…I can’t mask my emotions and cower before others! These feelings weren’t made for others’ consumption—they’re mine alone!”

“It’s not about bundling up your emotions for this or that reason—you should simply think of it as something you must do to reassure parents who rejoice and grieve over their child’s every single action…”

“I myself do think that way and try to act on it at times. But suppose I’m suddenly seized by some fleeting emotion and say something like, ‘My, Mother’s earlobes are lovely—such a beautifully translucent color!’ Then immediately I’m told, ‘Stop spouting nonsense like a lunatic!’ When you’re in that startled frame of mind and hear such words, it’s just like watching gorgeously costumed stage performers leaping about in their splendid headdresses—only for the pine resin securing the bamboo props to snap, making them tumble down and reveal a bald actor’s bare scalp beneath the fallen headgear. It’s that I become utterly helpless on my own—and once that happens…”

Chiyoko spoke in a resigned tone and, seeing H—who wouldn’t stop drawing lines on the white paper—gripped her pen again.

After a while, Mother,

“You’re working so diligently—shall we pause our chat? Tea will be served shortly.” With that, Mother entered. Chiyoko turned slightly and saw her mother’s unappealingly colored gums as she smiled and the exposed roots of her bangs; feeling as though she’d been confronted with something unbearably unclean, she briefly furrowed her brows before lowering her eyes back to the paper. The sound of Mother’s voice discussing some modern woman behind her grew intolerably grating; though certain she’d be told to “stop,” Chiyoko turned to the piano and began playing Beethoven’s sonata.

Whenever she heard the occasional voice calling "that girl," she stomped the pedal without a care for deviating from the rhythm. Even as she played the piano with her heart straying into discordant rhythms, for no reason she recalled the final scene from Hedda.

Even though it had nothing to do with her, recalling that pistol shot which followed those discordant tones—so similar in their careless cadence to these sounds—Chiyoko shuddered and stopped her hands; she felt a heavy foreboding, as though something terrible were about to occur. Even lining up nothing but characters all day left her spending it in restless irritation.

At bedtime, H said to Chiyoko, “Once about a week has passed, I think I’ll make a quick trip—postcard—” With that, H laughed as though flinging something aside.

Chiyoko didn’t respond and laughed softly under her breath, feeling as though her privacy had been encroached upon. Having spent nearly a month in uninterrupted proximity to H, she had thoroughly mapped his quirks and temperament. Here was a tenaciously neurotic man who reframed even his bitterest experiences as formative lessons; one tethered to daily life yet capable of observing it with clinical detachment; brimming with unshakable confidence yet viewing women through bifurcated lenses; so dazzled by his own heart’s paradoxical brilliance that he became its own victim—these truths about his nature Chiyoko had come to grasp through sustained observation.

Playing with the haori cord,

When leaning against an armchair, he would invariably rest both arms on it and clasp his fingers near his chest,

disliking drinking tea from a rice bowl

Being overly particular about basting stitches Blinking frequently when laughing Whenever entering any room, he would invariably look up. Pulling at his fingertips These, though not particularly conspicuous, were among his habits. Even knowing all these habits, Chiyoko did not think he was a detestable person. That he always spoke in a clear, bright voice with rounded tones, and that even the finest pores of his skin lacked the oily sheen typical of men—these were things that Chiyoko found particularly pleasing.

Though Chiyoko knew Mother had grown even more watchful since H began staying with them, she lived as if declaring she would simply do what she herself must do without giving it particular heed. As year-end approached, what Chiyoko had written reached about halfway completion, yet neither the turns of phrase nor the surging emotions within could satisfy her no matter how she tried. The more she looked, the more flaws surfaced—until she grew sick of even glancing at it—and from then on spent each day bearing an air of unresolved tension, laughing yet abruptly lapsing into bouts of intense brooding.

“It’s because you’re here that I can’t write as I want to,” and other such remarks,

“I’m truly about to shed tears now—though it shouldn’t mean I’m spineless for being unable to do this while you’re here…” Amidst countless discarded drafts, she would prop her cheek on her hand and speak in an irritated, shrill voice. “You likely won’t see me until nightfall—then I’ll write with all my strength.”

It was around that time when she would shut herself in the chilly tea room and write at her scripture desk.

Though the willful Chiyoko occasionally displayed behavior unbefitting someone interacting with her elders, H knew that somewhere in his heart he found satisfaction in this—nay, was even captivated by it—and that beneath his intellectual interest in Chiyoko (whose mind alone had matured) there grew an emotion of striking clarity. Chiyoko too caught glimpses of this.

Right after New Year’s, H returned to Okitsu.

While casting a mocking gaze at those who clamored about "New Year's this, New Year's that" and those exchanging hollow greetings of "Happy New Year," Chiyoko found no displeasure in wearing her newly prepared formal striped silk kimono—its splendid hem rustling cheerfully to reveal the slender toes of her tabi socks as it swayed vivaciously. Around Nanakusa, Chiyoko achieved a state of mind devoid of gaps—taut and unyielding. Having burned her manuscripts for the first time, she watched flames rise from ten, then twenty sheets of discarded paper—the colorless core at the blaze's heart giving way to lingering red embers, then outermost of all, a faint bluish-purple hue burning with pure intensity as it received ample oxygen. To her mind, these flames—bearing both heat and purpose—gathered deep within her heart, ascending like immaculate fire into consciousness now purified to monochromatic clarity. Chiyoko, who typically grieved when seeing tangible ashes—remnants of what had borne form and written words—now watched the ash preserve its shape as it crumbled with a sigh, smiling faintly from joy and resolve surpassing sorrow. She draped an ink-stained figured silk haori over her gaudy kimono, its sleeves and cuffs blotched black, then traced each character with solemn focus in a room deliberately kept fireless. This capacity to write thirty or forty pages daily without revision—feeding Chiyoko’s tendency to become absorbed—left her so quiet through each day, marked only by faint smiles and sighs, that her presence grew nearly imperceptible.

Knowing her daughter’s tendencies, Mother tactfully declined invitations to karuta parties and New Year gatherings without mentioning them to Chiyoko. With healthy eyes and complexion, she studied day after day. The three or four letters H had sent described his tranquil life there, the well-honed clarity of his own mind, and the annoyance of being urged to marry. It was neither a particularly good letter nor anything useful, but Chiyoko slipped it between the pages of a magazine.

Even though Chiyoko hadn’t been particularly shaken by H, she couldn’t help but believe that a somewhat different hue had now been added to her life.

"How strange." There were times when she would blurt things out with the unsteady posture of a frog at the start of its leap. After going to the bookstore that afternoon in the fickle wind, Chiyoko returned and placed three or four rather heavy packages on the table. Then, as was her habit, she scanned the entire room before touching—for no reason at all—the magazine containing H’s letter, picking it up as if by mere happenstance. The letter was inserted in a different place than before, and its rolled state had loosened slightly.

“Mother saw it!” Chiyoko thought this and gave a faint smile; still holding it in her hand, she imagined how Mother had looked at that time.

When I went to catch the train, Mother had come here—her brows twitching hurriedly as she glanced through desk drawers, inspected the empty bookshelf compartments, found nothing here either, let out a sigh tinged with deflation, then settled into the rattan chair to survey the book-cluttered room. Absentmindedly picking up this nearby magazine—oddly swollen—she slightly furrowed her brows, then opened it as if confronting something fearsome. A letter lay inside; a nervous flicker lit her pupils. She read through it without skipping a single line—mentions of daily routines, admonitions for Chiyoko to take care of her health, pleas to consider her feelings—and with faint relief, began rereading from the start. Now fully reassured, she rolled it back up while thinking: "She’ll surely protest if she finds out… But no matter—I’ll say it’s a parent’s right to supervise."

Unaware that about three pages had come loose, she inserted them back in place, lightly tapped the cover with her finger, hurriedly exited, sat before the chest of drawers, thought *She should be back soon…*, and looked at the clock.

Such things rose vividly before her eyes. While unhooking the glove clasp,

“Mother, has anything changed while I was away?”

Planted squarely before Mother, Chiyoko flashed a devilish grin.

“You must have been cold - but naturally nothing has changed at all now has there?” “It was merely a brief interval -”

Mother straightened her lips again after having slightly loosened them, She knows.

Mother thought. "Oh, Mother... hehehe..." In Chiyoko’s heart, her mother’s thoughts and feelings were reflected not as in a mirror, but with far greater clarity—through vivid hues and lights. She watched the motionless yet twitching eyebrows and lips that seemed to have aborted a smile; though feeling somewhat guilty, within Chiyoko’s heart swirled a muddled surge of faintly ticklish emotion and gratitude toward one who worried so deeply for her.

“Mother, please rest assured! It’s perfectly fine—such a thing isn’t an issue at all!”

Chiyoko said with a laugh. “Oh well, just go change your kimono—I did tell you to leave it draped over the kotatsu, didn’t I?” “Okay, then I’ll go change.” “No one will be calling from anywhere today anyway—and even if they do, I’ll just refuse them, so it doesn’t matter…” While Chiyoko muttered to herself, her mother busily attached the inner collar. Swiftly donning a warm kimono, she shut herself in her room and began reading through the books she had acquired, marking them with red lines as she went.

In the evening came a telephone call from Aunt in Iidamachi saying they were inviting people from the hospital tonight and she should come prepared to help. To Chiyoko's displeasure, Mother forcibly had her hair styled up, dressed her in the navy-striped formal kimono that suited her best, made her board the carriage, and sent her off.

(4)

When they were jostled in the carriage for thirty minutes and arrived at their destination, rows of men's geta lined the entrance. From the hall came waves of men's unrestrained laughter spilling forth, through which Aunt's voice rose distinctly clear like glass. The elderly maid emerged from the tea room at the sound of footsteps; saying "Oh my, welcome," she scrutinized Chiyoko from face to inner sleeve color in one glance, then urged "Everyone awaits you—do hurry along now," her eyes already inspecting zori sandals' stitching patterns aligned on flagstones. Chiyoko was still removing gloves when she hurriedly led her to the hall. Sliding open the shoji just enough to whisper to Aunt, she wordlessly pressed Chiyoko's back forward while closing it behind them with a click before scurrying off with dry, hurried footsteps.

In the pale lavender tobacco smoke, countless eyes were fixed upon her, yet she showed neither blushing shame nor the composure to lower her gaze. "This is my niece from Hayashimachi. Do extend your kindness." While darting a fleeting glance at Chiyoko, Aunt presented her to the assembly. Positioned slightly lower than her aunt, she shuffled forward on both knees and—with practiced laughter—executed a bow precisely calibrated for such occasions.

“I see… Well…” “I have heard much about you.” “I hear she’s connected with friends in Shinbashi-machi, you know.”

Many voices said such things, but among them all, there was not a single person who spoke words sufficiently composed for Chiyoko to even consider replying. With the composed demeanor of someone past thirty, Chiyoko began mentally observing the approximately twenty men lined up. Each and every one of them appeared to be the sort who would repeatedly cycle through the same five or so hackneyed jokes they knew nothing beyond, making others think, "Oh ho ho." Each and every one of these quasi-doctors possessed their profession's characteristic flimsy demeanor—some sporting long beards that stuck out like wire springs, others trimmed short in the current fashion, with still others arranging faint shadow-like wisps of facial hair one by one in pretentious displays. Men with eyes that seemed keenly perceptive yet were fundamentally foolish; a man absurdly affecting sophistication; someone incessantly stroking their chin while emitting reminiscent "Ehehehe" chuckles; a man tugging his kimono collar between forefinger and middle finger with squeak-squeak noises, briskly pulling the lower front flap before smacking his hakama cord knot with startling dexterity—could there truly be women who would willingly marry into such households? They all seemed to be exactly that sort of people. While smiling at the corners of her mouth, she made a tsk sound by scratching her gums and glanced at her aunt’s profile.

After the sake cups began circulating, the men’s behavior only appeared increasingly undisciplined and foolish. Here and there they called out “Miss” in slurred voices. Among them was even a man who cluelessly addressed her as “the Madam’s esteemed niece” in such an astonished, near-fatal manner. Chiyoko watched with knitted brows as a man—hands trembling drunkenly while clutching an overflowing cup—spilled sake down his hakama to his knees in a slash-like cascade, then in his frantic wiping attempts accidentally dipped his sleeve cuff into the rice bowl, all while she made no move to assist him, grinding her molars as she glared. It would be better if the wives of these men just spent all year dragging their hems in those shiny-sleeved kimonos, doing nothing but nibbling salted peas and drawing simple faces in the hearth ashes whenever they had a spare moment, she thought. They left three sake stains on the tatami mats before concluding the meal.

“Let’s play karuta in the adjacent room.”

At Aunt’s suggestion, the men entered the adjacent room with wobbly-legged steps. As Chiyoko leaned against a pillar watching the men’s large, hairy hands fumble clumsily through the cards, she was persuaded by her aunt to join them. “Give it your all.” The pale man seated beside her spoke, then attempted to strike Chiyoko’s rounded shoulder with hands bearing dirty nails unbefitting his profession; as she swiftly twisted her body away, he ended up propping himself on his elbow in an absurd posture.

Chiyoko moved her frantic small white-tipped fingers as if seized by a tantrum and lashed out across the space. Amidst the reddish-brown hairy hands pointlessly flailing about, a hand adorned with rings set with rubies and onyx glided through the cards effortlessly—its skin porcelain-white, its nails blushed cherry-pink. Chiyoko felt a radiant arrogance—like a queen subduing foolish subjects with her pale hands, or a lioness proudly thrusting her chest forward as she strode through a herd of spineless creatures.

Chiyoko knew the men were dying to see her act playfully for their amusement. One man tried tickling Chiyoko only to get pinched, while another deliberately bumped into her and ended up flat on his backside. Why must creatures called men insist on such nauseating antics at times like these? An unpleasant sensation washed over Chiyoko as if men's most repulsive traits had been forcibly exposed. Then without conscious intent, she found herself recalling H's lofty clear forehead, those firm neck muscles, and that resonant rounded voice.

A little past ten o'clock, Chiyoko could bear it no longer and announced she was leaving. Though her aunt had tried to stop her in vain, there was naturally no chance those men’s words would make her stay; wrapping a white fur boa around her neck and donning black gloves, Chiyoko stepped into the zori sandals that sparkled across the flagstones. The men went out to see her off while leaning against each other. After getting into the carriage,

“Goodbye, everyone,” Chiyoko said with a laugh that carried only perfunctory warmth. “Thanks to you, it was most delightful,” replied a male guest. “I hope we may meet again someday,” she offered ritualistically. “How splendid!” another man exclaimed. A different guest bellowed in a gruff baritone. Chiyoko’s relatively young rickshaw puller hung a lantern from the shafts while chuckling—“Heh heh heh”—a sound that struck her as unparalleled mockery. Her heart settled like water lightly stirred, having escaped into an astonishing quietness after the commotion. Pale sparks occasionally scattered across the dark sky while blue and red town lights twinkled shyly with a poetic, mystical radiance that made it hard to believe humans dwelled within their glow. Chiyoko imagined walking this path in geta sandals. The carriage bounced along the softly swollen road—the clinking rhythm of pebbles striking silver wheels blending with the patter of tabi-clad feet racing across ground.

The drowsiness-inducing sounds coalesced into a single melody that stroked her eardrums. When she raised her eyes with a sudden ticklish sensation at her earlobe, she realized she had nearly dozed off. For no particular reason, becoming frivolously excited, Chiyoko immediately clung to her mother upon arriving home and,

“You’re quite the peculiar woman, aren’t you?”

While being told this, she fell asleep wearing an innocent expression.

“Ah right—we had a postcard come from Okitsu earlier saying he’ll return tomorrow night—H did.” “Oh, have you fallen asleep already?”

Chiyoko was listening to her mother’s low voice saying this in a dreamlike state.

(5)

H, who had returned from Okitsu, looked remarkably healthier with a lively gleam in his eyes. He gave Chiyoko a picture postcard of Mr. Takayama’s grave and some sightseeing cards. “You must have gotten plenty of studying done.”

H said laughing. "Oh, you really shouldn't say such things"—anyone would spout that sort of cliché in this situation—no, any woman would—Chiyoko thought in that instant. "Oh yes, oh yes, I certainly did study plenty!"

After saying this, she thought that using such words made little difference from saying "How could that be?" and gave a wry smile. "You've darkened my favorite forehead a bit," Chiyoko said with concern. "That's foolish—you mustn't say such things, people will think—" Mother violently waved her hand sideways as if erasing her own interrupted words, making an exaggeratedly stern face.

They talked until quite late about the scenic beauty and how her younger sister had grown. As she listened, Chiyoko saw before her eyes H walking along a deserted winter beach—where boats lay upturned on the shore with their nets spread thinly to dry—his attention caught by the thunderous waves as he contemplated distant matters. Mr. Takayama’s grave appeared so inviting that she wished to be buried there herself.

As he was leaving, H said such things at the stone-paved entranceway.

“I’ve come to not know which is my own home anymore, you see.” Imagining H having to return to a pitch-dark house where no one awaited him—not uttering a single word as he silently lay down on the futon the maid had spread out—Chiyoko grew increasingly restless.

"Well, I suppose that's just fine," the maid said after uttering such incomprehensible things, "Miss, it'd be perfectly fitting if you were to marry into Mr. H's household."

She recalled how the maid had once said this with a smirk. That night, Chiyoko dreamed of thousands upon thousands of leaping, bouncing entities enveloping and tossing her body about, jolting her awake at dawn.

The next day when H came and talked while working on blueprints, it was about wedding matters similar to what he had written to Chiyoko in his letter. "I just can't bring myself to like that sort of woman—she's among those who believe money is everything in this world. If push came to shove, she wouldn't hesitate to trade her husband for a golden Buddha statue... A woman who makes such tacky attempts at fashion yet possesses an oddly bold streak that's downright exasperating."

Saying such things, H spoke while laughing composedly as if retelling another's story. For three or four days now, there had been nights when Chiyoko did not rebuff him. Whether tormented by nightmares, agitated by thoughts, or sinking into contemplation, she would often drift into drowsiness only for dawn to break. Chiyoko herself sensed something amiss—whether it was her surroundings needling her relentlessly, emotions running too high, the leaden weight in her head, or meals left untouched.

Every single day, it seemed there were countless things she had to write as if being chased—not knowing where to begin, becoming so overwhelmed that her hands would freeze, or rewriting things she’d already written—until Chiyoko’s already high-strung mind grew increasingly disordered, her complexion turning pale and eyes sunken.

“It’s because you get too absorbed in things. You should quit school and fix yourself already.”

Mother fretted more than Chiyoko herself with an anxious look in her eyes and stirred up a commotion. The doctor who knew Chiyoko’s constitution well prepared a medicinal plaster without examining her. The substitute doctor who answered the phone said while snickering, “If you take this daily and retire by nine o’clock, I hear you’ll recover in ten days.” What was this? They were making fools of people—what would happen if I suddenly died from a more serious illness?

Even when calmed by H, she grew so furious that she wouldn’t heed a word her mother said. "That too is due to your illness."

Her mother said probingly and touched her forehead.

The next morning, after collapsing from intense dizziness, she lay completely still in bed. Disliking getting soiled while lying in bed during the day, she made the maid use freshly laundered items from Western-style washing, had her bring out the sun-dried feather pillow, and lightly sprinkled rose perfume on the collar of her purple velvet nightgown. Then within this arrangement, she lay down wearing a merino yuzen kimono with daringly long sleeves secured by an obi, her hair fully let down. At her bedside, she arranged her favorite books and placed a patchwork pillow screen.

Holding the poetry collection of someone she was utterly infatuated with, she lay in a half-asleep and half-awake daze, her eyes alternately squinting open and fluttering shut. Despite neither thinking nor doing anything, her head felt utterly exhausted as if she had endured a week’s worth of sleepless nights—so much so that lifting herself from the pillow alone proved difficult—while ceaseless kaleidoscopic swirls churned at the backs of her eyes. When night came, her fever spiked nine times over. With boiling water seeming to roil inside her skull, Chiyoko lay there staring wide-eyed yet dazed. Muttering fragmented complaints under her breath, she drifted into sleep wearing an expression that had forgotten everything. Until morning light woke her, not even dreams visited.

The moment she got up, “Even though I slept well last night, my head feels unbearably heavy.” In a complaining voice, Chiyoko said.

“The medicine you took before bed might have contained a small dose of morphine, and given how you were last night, there’s no way you’d recover so quickly today.”

Mother carefully explained to her. Chiyoko silently shook her head, and a faint smile appeared on her cheeks. In her associative mind floated stories of those who had died in their sleep from overly strong morphine doses, Poe’s premature burials, and Juliet’s fate—all surfacing instantly.

"Suppose I were to die completely from an overdose of morphine," the people I knew would weep while brushing out my hair to length as I had instructed beforehand, dress me in the most becoming kimono, surround my body with flowers, and place inside the glass coffin adorned with silver fittings my favorite rings along with one or two manuscripts and books. Then they would bury me in the earth; after about ten days I would suddenly revive; my body having grown more vibrant and beautiful than before; emerging from the soil, I would first marvel at how pale my complexion had turned. Then I would go home. The family would undoubtedly collapse like those few who believe in ghosts—after carefully observing their feet—

“Oh my, is it really you, Chiyo?” Mother said while trembling, trying to hold her hand and stroke her face. “And oh, how great would their joy be when they believed it was truly me?—”

Chiyoko imagined such things. That day, for some reason, she made a point of quietly concealing thoughts about: the exertion of breaking the glass coffin; her unsightly appearance in that moment; the tense, indescribable expression on her face as she tried to escape the soil; her complexion; and the terrifying sight of her hands clawing at the earth.

After that, Chiyoko remained in bed for about three days. During this time, though H continued drafting blueprints in the Western-style room as usual, she felt an unsatisfying absence in not witnessing those mannerisms inseparable from her existence: his comical way of entering at teatime with black tea and sweets on a silver tray held deliberately below eye level; his boisterous laughter at childish trifles; the earnest gaze and faintly smiling lips with which he would assume a solemn expression when beginning serious discussions. While sharpening his pencil, he would sometimes abruptly recall Chiyoko’s bold gestures—the fluttering way her hands would toss things with dramatic flair. At such moments, H would always wrinkle the tip of his nose and utter “Hmph” as if it concerned another person, never fully trusting these emotions that had only recently begun taking root within him.

(6)

It was an unusually mild day, one that seemed to glow with warmth.

H, wanting to let in ample light, threw open all the south-facing bay windows; the white paper was tinged pale pink only where the sunlight fell. While brushing back his thick hair that kept falling onto his white forehead, H, feeling lighthearted, began singing his favorite lullaby. “Slumber Slumber”—he projected gentle, flowing tones from the depths of his chest as if shaking them loose and sang with full voice. Suddenly, from the thicket of garden trees, a light young woman’s voice joined in singing the same melody as accompaniment. H abruptly stopped his song; simultaneously, that voice also ceased abruptly. When he resumed singing with a faint smile, the voice continued as well.

H thought this while singing.

“My voice sounds strangely better than usual—glossy, almost cloyingly sweet. What’s happening? My appearance might even be more refined than normal. Truly a voice that tickles the senses…” When he finished singing, he immediately leaned out the window to look. Beneath the magnolia tree, Chiyoko sat with a small wicker chair placed beneath her, a book open on her lap. “Miiiss Chiyooo!”

H called out in a voice like the hue of a flower blooming suddenly. Turning abruptly toward him, Chiyoko stood beneath the window—far taller than her own stature—her white teeth glinting.

“Why? Enough already?” “Well, it’s all well and good, but though we share the same roof, you scarcely show yourself… Her Majesty the Queen grows wroth.” “Do-o-o grant your royal pardon, Your Majesty! But speaking of which—isn’t today splendid? So warm and still—wouldn’t you agree?” “Splendid indeed—truly! Yet such days leave one merely buoyant—weather that makes thought itself impossible…”

“You who just got up today needn’t think so hard…… And even if you did think about it—” “I already know the rest—” “You seem to favor women who dislike thinking and are all talk.” With a mischievous laugh, Chiyoko said. Reaching out, Chiyoko hooked her fingers on the window frame; as H leaned out and spoke while looking down from above, she found herself recalling a theatrical scene in their poses.

“What’s gotten into our rare garden visitor today?” “Why? You’ll scarcely find anyone who explains such trifles point by point!”

Chiyoko immediately followed that with,

“But if it bothers you, shall I tell you?” “That’s rather strange!” A shrill laugh echoed into the distance. “There’s no need to take such offense at what was said without malice—”

“In that case, I won’t say it anymore. Won’t you go somewhere today? The warmth is just right for walking—it would lift your spirits!” “You’re still being too rash. You ought to stay quiet today and tomorrow at least. You should still be taking Kusubaku.” “No, I only take it when I’m unwell. If I keep taking it too long, it’ll become a habit and stop working.” “Well then, I’ll behave quietly today—but somehow I really want to go out, you know?”

“It feels wonderful, truly—don’t you feel like great big wings might sprout from your back? Wouldn’t it be splendid to ride an aircraft?”

“It feels nice, but I’m tired of looking up like this—it feels like even your voice comes crashing down on my head from above…” “There you go again with your habits. But well, in that case, come in from over there—let’s talk a bit more. You should invite Mother as well.”

Chiyoko nodded in understanding and stepped up from the veranda. “Mother, let’s go talk with Mr. H. He said you should come too.” “Is that so? But I must finish this first, so tell him I’ll come later.” Mother waved the small cloth she held in her hand. Though she couldn’t quite grasp what Mother was doing,

“Well then… later…”

With that, she went to the Western-style room.

Basking in the warm sunlight that flushed his face, H remained leaning against the sofa with his eyes closed. Chiyoko, who had suddenly tried to speak up loudly, momentarily hesitated with her mouth twitching and sat down beside him. “You’ve got such a lovely complexion.” Chiyoko immediately thought that while convincing herself she must look even more beautiful; with a sly, quick laugh, she gave a slight tug to the hem of her haori.

Chiyoko, aware that H was awake yet keeping her primly composed face immobile, gazed at the paper’s finely uneven surface glowing with intricate beauty while becoming distracted by the quiet ringing in her ears.

“Why did you start this?” Pressed by a sensation of being cornered—as if he himself couldn’t answer even if questioned—H lay there without so much as a tremor in his lashes, maintaining the pretense of true sleep while contemplating matters that now refused to balance. "Why do I always find myself smiling whenever Chiyoko smiles? When she grows temperamental, I too become burdened before realizing it—I must never forget that it’s women who’ve given me this trembling fury and sorrow whenever recalled, no matter the circumstance."

I must continue to see Chiyoko as nothing more than an ordinary daughter, yet with each passing day I find myself increasingly unwilling to let her go from my side. Right now I can judge my heart as good or bad or neither—but Chiyoko, I— But I myself didn’t think I harbored such a youthful state of mind.

[One manuscript page missing below]

"Could it be that God created someone like me on a mischievous whim? Could it be that this is why my mind harbors such excessively developed emotions and matters that haven’t progressed an inch proportionally? Could it be that after making it seem like I might become something, He tricks me into swallowing it with a hollow thud, only to end up reduced to mere nothingness?" He pondered such matters with considerable seriousness.

The two of them were discussing *Waga Sode no Ki*.

Mother’s recent literary critiques were not particularly welcomed, so she continued contemplating while watching H’s pale fingertips practice his pencil artistry. The phrase “Well now—for a brief spell I’ll flap my wings and test my feathers—but when it comes time to fly—” had indeed been spoken by Bersenev in *The Eve*, yet it now seemed equally like words uttered by some self-deceiving force that playfully indulged its own whims.

“No matter what happens, I won’t let you have your way!” The moment this defiant heart flared up, there appeared—as if someone took pleasure in poking a dying insect with a needle’s tip to watch it writhe faintly and whimper under the sting—the very image of petty humanity’s futile resistance, vain struggles, and a force delighting in subjecting humans to precisely such torment. “If even M won’t come on a day like this, I’ll truly be at my wit’s end.” Closing her eyes, she rested her head on her folded hands,

“Mother”

Still prostrated, Chiyoko called out. The two were engrossed in conversation as though they had completely forgotten Chiyoko was there.

“Mother!” Chiyoko called out fretfully, like a little girl would. “What’s the matter now? Again?” Mother stood up together with H and approached Chiyoko’s side.

“Again?” “What’s wrong?” “It must be because it’s too unpleasantly warm.”

Chiyoko shuddered. H's words and attitude—delivered in that pliant, naive-young-master tone—seeped smoothly into her hardened heart. A drowsy sensation came over her,

“A little… but there’s really nothing. Both of you were pretending you’d forgotten I was here, so I felt utterly excluded…”

Still prostrated and looking at H from the corner of her right eye, Chiyoko said. "What's this? You're talking like a baby now, huh." "Earlier, while discussing Waga Sode no Ki, we somehow got onto chastity—I really did forget all about you."

“Right, but today instead of such talk, we should eat something delicious like sweets.”

Chiyoko said with a nonchalant face. While the three of them were still mid-laughter,

“Mr. Minamoto of Yamada has arrived.” The maid had just announced him when immediately afterward entered Cousin Minamoto—attending the commerce department and so large that Chiyoko always said he’d “grown too much.” “Hey!” The two men exchanged those boisterous shouts typical of male camaraderie and shared inexplicable laughter. After conversing briefly, H turned back to his drafting table. “It’s been quite some time, hasn’t it? Has school kept you busy?”

Mother asked. "Yes, I had been gathering materials for my thesis all along, so this year was actually when I finally started working on it." Mr. Minamoto said in his usual gentlemanly and unhurried tone. "What thesis?"

Chiyoko said with a slightly derisive edge, her lips quivering.

“What do you mean, 'what thesis'? Even if I told you, you wouldn’t understand—you know nothing at all.” Her tone—like lecturing a small child—needled the short-tempered man. “Pray don’t look down on me so. After all, the papers Mr. Minamoto writes are usually nothing...”

With that, she gave a sharp twitch of her nostrils. "That’s not ladylike!" Mother cautioned as if barking a command.

“Mr. H, you needn’t go that far either! Why don’t you join us a bit?” “Yes indeed! When everyone’s exchanging glances, having someone turn their back is more unpleasant than uneven face powder.”

Chiyoko nodded in agreement. “You made quite a pretentious remark, didn’t you? Well then, let’s turn this way.” Mr. H pivoted his chair with his toes to face them, bringing his face into alignment with Mr. Minamoto’s. When she attempted to shift her gaze—still lingering on Mr. H’s faintly moving lips—toward Mr. Minamoto’s cropped head, she discovered he had been staring at her all along. A sensation of exposed vulnerability washed over her, breath catching behind clenched molars. She fixed a piercing glare into Mr. Minamoto’s eyes.

Mr. Minamoto immediately turned away. While feeling triumphant, she gently watched Mr. H’s pale forehead as though guarding something precious. “You’re being unusually quiet today, huh?”

After briefly glancing at her mother’s teasing face, Chiyoko shook her shoulders and laughed with a “Fufufu.” “Hey, Chiyo-chan—I heard you were sick right after New Year’s. Aren’t you going back to school yet? Are you better now?”

Mr. Minamoto, who had lacked an opportunity to speak, interjected with strained emphasis on "Hey".

“That’s right—I’ve only just been up since recently. I’ll go out in another day or two.” “You need to take care of yourself... How about we go check out around Meguro this coming Sunday? That sounds good, doesn’t it?” Mr. Minamoto spoke in an unusually buoyant voice, as if there were some overly happy matter. “But they’ll come along again, won’t they?” Chiyoko said, furrowing her brows at the thought of having to take her younger brothers along.

“It’s starting again—if you don’t want to go, then don’t! You’re always such a selfish thing, aren’t you?” Mother snatched these words and cast a glance toward Mr. H and Mr. Minamoto as if seeking their approval, but since both were looking elsewhere, her awkwardly diverted gaze slipped through the woven lattice of the rattan chair and fell upon the carpet’s floral pattern. “Well—I suppose I should go give instructions for the feast.”

Mother grunted lazily and exited through the western door near the kitchen. Chiyoko’s head grew unreasonably tired. Having chosen the deepest chair and placed a cushion against her head while listening to their conversation, she must have dozed off unnoticed—for when she awoke, a red satin feather quilt had been wrapped around her body.

It seemed Mr. Minamoto was playing tennis with her younger brothers out back; the weighty thud of balls could be heard. Mr. H was diligently drawing lines, but upon noticing the sound of movement, he turned around with a gentle smile. "You slept, didn’t you? Your head still isn’t fully recovered. I thought you seemed fatigued earlier..." Leaning back against the drafting table and arching his posture while rubbing his eyes, he looked at Chiyoko’s face and spoke.

“How long has it been?” “At most about an hour, I suppose.” “That quilt—Mr.Minamoto asked Mother to bring out for you... and then we covered you with it.”

“Oh…” Chiyoko, still dazed, gave an absentminded reply. As she silently gazed at the feather quilt’s deep red hue mottled with shadows, she found herself overwhelmed by a desolate mood—hard and riddled with fissures—until tears began seeping out. H kept gazing at Chiyoko. Turning away from those eyes as if evading them, she felt tears spill forth with a chill like marrow seeping from her skull. Showing tears before men was what Chiyoko detested. Yet an incomprehensible emotion swelled so intensely she couldn’t move a muscle. She lowered her head and buried it in the cushion. Within the softness, her head became like a pounding iron ball.

“What’s wrong?” In a low, subdued voice, H asked. Chiyoko noticed the glimmer of tears in his eyes. Chiyoko had no capacity to make any remarks about it.

H began walking around the room, looking at his feet. After pacing back and forth countless times, he turned toward the shadows and started praying. Chiyoko watched through tear-dampened eyes as he stood bowed, hands clasped to his chest in prayer. When H finished praying, Chiyoko had stopped crying—yet tears trembled at the edges of his eyes. Neither knew why they had wept, yet both sensed their hearts understood this unspoken communion.

“Let’s sing a song.” Mr. H said in his usual voice. While playing their favorite song, Chiyoko kept her eyes closed. Each note seemed to seep into her chest until gradually her face grew hot, her body began to tremble, and tears spilled forth once more. Enduring, Chiyoko continued playing to avoid showing her tears to Mr. H, but ultimately lowered her head onto the ivory keys. H, who had gradually stopped singing, quietly watched but then softly cradled Chiyoko’s head before opening the garden door and leaving. Trembling as if exhausted and making no sound, Chiyoko wept.

It wasn’t that she was sad because M wasn’t coming; it wasn’t that there was anything missing making her sad—was this just the sort of baseless melancholy common to young women? If that were truly the case, it would be far too trivial and shameful a thing. Chiyoko disliked the way young girls were always saying they felt lonely or sad. It wasn't that she disliked being emotional—what she hated was mindlessly proclaiming it through phrases like "I'm so dreadfully lonesome" or such nonsense. So then why am I crying? When I thought this, before I knew it, the tears had stopped. In their place, gloom and doubt surged up like clouds. "How strange!" With sunken eyes, Chiyoko thought. With the pad of her thumb producing a low, resonant sound, she sat enraptured by it, her face as rigid as an elder’s. H and Mr.Minamoto entered from the garden, laughing loudly.

“How’s that? “Better now?” An unintelligible smile—seeming like a continuation from earlier—had risen to Mr.Minamoto’s lips. These people have laughed their fill at whatever they found amusing, then come here with the dregs of that laughter to ask things like ‘How’s that?’ Chiyoko flushed and shook her head as stiffly as a wooden puppet. “It seems you’re feeling a bit unwell, aren’t you!” While looking at Chiyoko’s scowling brows, H said and sat down on the sofa beside Mr.Minamoto, who occasionally glanced toward Chiyoko and shook his body. Like bullied small birds remaining silent, the two of them sat by the chairs, but

"I'll just finish this part..." H said and stood up, whereupon Mr. Minamoto—who had been gazing at Chiyoko—hurriedly shifted his focus to H's hands while

“Please go ahead. I’ll take care of something as well.” He gave a clumsy reply meant to match the tone. “Chiyo-chan, I’ll borrow the simple life and bring it here, all right? That should be fine. Also, I’ve put the one from the other day away in the bookcase, so…”

“Well, if that’s how it is, then do so. The original text is also there—on the second shelf from the top on the front-facing bookcase, toward the edge… Probably.”

“I’ve been studying French on my own lately… You should give it a try too… It’s not too difficult… Quite enjoyable…” "But right now you can’t—since you’re occupied like this every day—if you go to Meguro next Sunday and don’t feel unwell, you could manage a bit more, but…" “Is that really true? But from the look of things, you don’t seem unwell at all…”

She found it unbearably tedious how they were so politely discussing such disjointed, obvious things. While hitting her head against the back of the chair,

“Isn’t there anything interesting to talk about? There’s not an ounce of challenge here—what’s even the point in discussing such things...” “Yes… I suppose not...”

“By the way, what day of the week is today exactly?” “Today? Why did you forget? It’s Thursday!” “Then next Sunday will be here before we know it, right?” “That does seem to be the case, hmm… Tomorrow’s Friday, then comes Saturday…”

H said while facing away and laughing. “Yours is your old standby—utterly worthless.” “Those who speak little are more admirable.” “But women have nothing to talk about.” “Well, if you put it that way... but it’s rather odd...” Having overplayed his humor, he laughed rhythmically—“Ha ha, ha ha”—as if extracting laughter by force.

Mother entered while adjusting her collar, cornered the two, and began talking about Hokkaido.

Having been made to listen to it over and over like a prayer’s incantation, Chiyoko entered her room and began writing a letter to Koko. It refused to cohere; not even the first character would emerge as she intended. “Anyway since we’ll meet in a day or two…”

Thinking such things, she tossed the pale blue writing paper into the wastebasket full of manuscript pages as if marking a dot, letting it fall with a plop.

When she threw in the very last scrap of paper, “Miss Chiyokooooo—”

H called. As she was putting the lid on the ink bottle, "I want to sing."

he shouted again.

“I’m coming, so wait…” Rubbing the back of her hand with brisk, repetitive motions, “Play that one—that piece.” The moment H said this, Chiyoko played *Adieu*. H’s voice sounded twice, twice as beautiful as usual. *It’s because of the weather,* Chiyoko thought, feeling such intensity that she wanted to press her cheek against the voice’s rounded warmth. When they finished playing, the two looked at each other and laughed lightly for no particular reason. “I’ve always said you may play it whenever you wish.”

H said in a sighing voice that aligned with his feelings. “Please let me join you.”

Mr. Minamoto entered.

“Mr. Minamoto feels uneasy about us being alone together—and he hates when we’re alone together too—what’s this even about…” As Mr. Minamoto laughed while peering at the musical score over her shoulder, Chiyoko kept her composure as though declaring, “I won’t slacken a single muscle around my eyes.”

Chiyoko, who detested work and had been ordered to help with dinner while making a displeased face, around eight o'clock, “I’ll excuse myself first—since I’m not feeling well, I’ll go to bed now. I’ll probably go to school tomorrow.” After saying such things, she immediately went to bed. The next morning, having gone to bed early the previous night, she woke up around five o'clock. Again still in her usual nightclothes, she went to the Western-style room and was reading songs while warming herself by the fire. From around seven o'clock, Chiyoko began preparing with the intention of putting away her books and going to school. She changed into her kimono and checked the timetable—mathematics. The mathematics entry glared sternly at Chiyoko, its characters snarling as if ready to bite.

“Ugh, this is unbearable—just when I was finally trying to go.”

While glaring resentfully at the characters, Chiyoko stood there looking uncertain. "I should stop. What could I possibly accomplish going in this state?" She said as if hurling the words out and returned to the Western-style room. While walking, “Mother will say, ‘You’re spineless—truly not an ounce of patience in you.’” Thinking such things, she let out a strange laugh. She sat beside H and spent the entire day watching lines being drawn smoothly, as if without any reservation. As she was about to leave, her father,

"A person's head... You must keep it firm. Take care of your body." Though it was his customary act to hold Chiyoko's head while saying this, she found herself recalling it with unusual vividness.

Chiyoko strained herself trying to bolster and bolster her own somehow timid heart.

That day—as if all conversational topics had been exhausted—she spoke only of going to Meguro. “Aren’t you going again? That won’t do.” Her mother, who had been about to say this, saw the sharp, inexplicable glint in Chiyoko’s eyes—the kind that appeared when her emotions were unsettled—and had been urging her since evening to go to bed early, repeating, “Go to sleep now, go to sleep.”

(7)

Sunday was fairly good weather, and Chiyoko had a healthy-looking complexion. Chiyoko disliked groups of three in any activity. If two people were talking, one would inevitably be left staring blankly, creating an awkward gap. Thinking such things, Chiyoko didn't find the idea of going as three today very appealing. "Isn't there someone else who could join us? If someone wants to change the location, I wouldn't mind moving a bit so we can make it four."

She had even gone so far as to say. So much so that Chiyoko went out dressed entirely in her favorite things. On the way to Tabata Station, H kept looking up at the sky again and again, “What a splendid day—perfectly suited for walking.” he remarked in a thoroughly satisfied tone. Chiyoko walked less talkative than usual, kicking pebbles with the tips of her white tabi socks while occasionally comparing H’s light Western-style clothes with Mr. Minamoto’s large shadow enveloped in a mantle.

Though the Yamanote area was relatively uncrowded, Chiyoko found it unbearably irritating how the two women sitting directly across—one in her mid-twenties, the other around twenty—with their jaded eyes kept loudly criticizing her unconventional hairstyle and understated kimono styling as she sat stiffly wedged between them. Chiyoko stared fixedly at the woman’s snub-nosed face—bold as an archery gallery regular’s—with haughty eyes that seemed to say, *What do you think you’re…*

The woman across initially glared back as if retorting, “What?! You arrogant, clueless girl!” but soon found herself unable to withstand Chiyoko’s piercing stare and abruptly turned away to exchange glances with her companion. Chiyoko smirked triumphantly and shrugged her shoulders. “What’s the matter?” H interrupted his conversation with Mr. Minamoto to ask. “Having some sort of fit?” “A fit? Don’t be absurd—it’s perfectly splendid weather.”

Chiyoko smiled happily and scrutinized Mr. H’s face as if meeting him for the first time. Mr. H tugged her sleeve as one would when initiating a confidential conversation. In that mood, Chiyoko wanted him to say cloyingly sweet words—even if they were lies—in his rounded voice. She tilted her head like a timid young girl would. “Wait! The man standing in front!” She looked up at the shifty-eyed man blocking her path.

He wore a suit with coarse stripes and had tied his tie in a gaudy color with an unmistakably haphazard air. He was a greasy, pimple-covered man of about twenty-five or twenty-six with a slimy demeanor. Around the base of the third shell button from the top, a woman’s hair was coiled so tightly it throbbed painfully.

Even at the seventeen- or eighteen-year-old lad talking beside him, Chiyoko sharply twitched her eyebrows and glared with composed eyes at the man who looked thoroughly low-class. No matter how long they stood there, the two men wouldn’t stop their vulgar-seeming laughter that hinted at some private meaning. "How disgraceful!" Chiyoko, who had shouted as if thrusting something away, looked at H with a mouth as expressionless as a man's. H gave a wry smile and talked with Mr. Minamoto.

From the moment they left home, Mr. Minamoto had been weighed down by reluctance—even regretting having suggested visiting such a place today. Even on the train he hadn't taken his own seat but settled beside Mr.H. When speaking he addressed only Mr.H; when laughing he turned toward Mr.H—childish behavior yet an unbearable jealousy welled up within him. "He certainly loves Mr.H more than me." Even while dismissing such thoughts,

"But I'm younger than Mr. H!" He managed a faint smile in his eyes. In the face of jealousy that refused to dissipate,

"What nonsense! How absurd. Who cares...?" While thinking this, he gathered his aimlessly hypersensitive nerves in the depths of his eyes and watched intently—from how Chiyoko's eyes moved, to her body language, down to where her hands rested. "Why on earth did I suggest coming to such a place? I can't even understand my own feelings. Chiyoko is definitely thinking of Mr. H—and I'm just being used as a pawn!" He closed his eyes as if resigned. Seeing his face and demeanor so unusually different from normal, though unaware of the reason, the two somehow sensed an underlying unease.

“Mr. Minamoto, what’s wrong? Are you feeling unwell?” In a coaxing tone, Chiyoko called out to Mr. Minamoto, who was staring downward past H’s shoulder. “Nah, I’m fine—just not in a good mood.” Mr. Minamoto spoke to Chiyoko with unprecedented sharpness. Chiyoko exchanged glances with H and pulled an expression of unbearable distaste.

"He's plotting something—I'll make him explain once we're back. How absurd, nurturing such unmanly feelings!" The moment this thought formed, cruel determination seized her—she would torment Mr. Minamoto relentlessly throughout the day. "What's pitiful about it? Didn't he make me feel unpleasant even momentarily!" When they reached Meguro Station, Chiyoko—supported by H who had disembarked first—alighted with the affected grace of a foreign noblewoman and began walking with H positioned centrally. The trio faced toward Fudō-san where all visitors headed. After brief walking, Mr. Minamoto slipped slightly behind and pressed close to Chiyoko's side. Children with glistening nasal trails and wizened shrine maidens stared curiously at Chiyoko's oil-free hair tied with dahlia-like ribbons at both ears, her pale knitted silk shawl flowing unbuttoned past her knees, her long strides keeping pace with the men—then passed by muttering envious criticisms under their breath.

The three of them walked without speaking. However, a smile constantly lingered in Chiyoko’s eyes. When they came to the corner leading to Fudo-san, Mr. H saw a couple approaching from the opposite direction, “They’re sure full of themselves—and a bit slow at that, aren’t they?” he said. A young husband walked toward them, laughing as he hooked his wife’s Western-style parasol on his arm. The wife was a woman who seemed devoid of intelligence—only the tip of her nose was white, her hair clumsily bundled, her zori sandals kicking up dust with each step, her pale embroidered half-collar ridiculously ill-fitting. Having taken in this much at a glance, Chiyoko said in a nasal voice.

“You should never say such things—that’s such a bachelor-like thing to say.” When climbing those high steps—true to lifelong habit (since childhood, Chiyoko had always entwined her arms with whomever she walked, be it her father or others)—she hooked both arms around Mr. H and Mr. Minamoto’s arms and let herself be hauled up effortlessly. In the dim worship hall, a young monk who had been sprawled out leapt up at Chiyoko’s booming laughter and flushed crimson—a spectacle that struck her as both pitiful and ridiculous.

They circled around and descended. Chiyoko wore a refreshingly unburdened expression as she nimbly surveyed her surroundings. To tell the truth, what pleased her wasn't so much this stroll itself as getting revenge on Mr. Minamoto—who had momentarily unsettled her heart with his warped state of mind. The three walked clustered tightly through the open grounds while, "This place reeks of vulgarity, doesn't it?"

“And aren’t those women screeching in shrill voices at those tea houses even more disagreeable?” “And there are muttonheads lured by those voices too, don’t you think?” “You’d be surprised—the world’s vast enough for all sorts.” “I can’t imagine wanting to come waste time here again—would you?” “Tastes differ—there must be some who like it. Surely you agree?”

“Oh, I don’t like it—would I ever come to a place like this again?”

“You seem irritated—what’s wrong? I know!” “That isn’t what I’m talking about—”

H said such things and, with a slightly fierce glare, pushed Chiyoko's arm that was hooked at his side.

Looking down and giggling quietly,

“Yes yes,” she replied in a dismissive manner that seemed to bundle up and swallow everything whole.

“The chestnut rice and bamboo shoot rice here are such uninspired dishes—it’s truly astonishing how unappetizing they are…” “Right—once they standardize these such-and-such rice dishes across this neighborhood, they’ll end up even less appetizing than what amateurs could make. But if some serving girl who catches your fancy comes along, you might just put up with it, huh?” Chiyoko said something like what a man who’d lived it up would say. Mr. Minamoto looked away, and H laughed while gazing at Chiyoko’s nape.

“I simply cannot abide this place any longer—let us go to Myōkaen instead, it’s quite near—wouldn’t you agree?”

As soon as she settled onto the red blanket in the innermost tea house, she began speaking in a willful manner. H, who was drinking bitter tea,

“Had enough already?” “We can go if you like，but what about Mr．Minamoto？” “That’s fine—we’ll accompany you even if．．．”

While eating yokan, Mr. Minamoto simply nodded in agreement. “Then let’s do that. But can you walk, Chiyoko?” “If you thought I couldn’t walk, why would anyone suggest it? I’ll certainly walk, no matter what happens…” “Even if you intend to walk, wouldn’t it be a problem if your legs refuse to obey?” “You can say that after letting me try walking! It’s too soon to decide now, right from the start.”

Chiyoko said while crumbling a rice cracker into tiny pieces in her palm. "Oh, why don't I just take a big bite as it is? Did I do this to put on airs..."

With a suppressed chuckle between her gums and teeth, she could make out the dark profile of the girl earnestly talking to the man across the way who carried a tiered lunchbox. The conversation between the two took shape in Chiyoko’s mind as disjointed, clumsy foolishness. “Sis”

H called out with a mischievous-looking face.

The girl, engrossed in conversation, apparently couldn’t hear him and didn’t even try to turn around. “Come here for a moment, please.” When Chiyoko spoke in her characteristic high-pitched voice, the girl hurriedly came running with her geta sandals askew. H was taking out the empty teapot while, “She was quite popular, huh?”

he said with a malicious laugh. The girl flushed crimson and, brushing back the strands of hair falling into her plain face, headed toward the tea kettle. “It’s such a strange, unpleasant feeling when an unattractive girl of that age blushes like that, isn’t it?”

Chiyoko whispered knowingly to H in a low voice and observed the comparatively plump figure from behind, her narrow-width obi tied in a shell-shaped knot. "Aren't we the same sex? We should be allies. It's not like there's much difference in our ages either..." H remarked casually while stroking his thick hair. With one eye admiring H's beautiful hands—pale and taut like those of a hysterical woman—and the other noting Mr. Minamoto's discomfort, Chiyoko watched those same hands flutter like white doves through the dark thicket of hair. After leaving the tea house, still feeling peculiarly enticed, she walked with a swaying gait along the tree-lined path—its beautiful pebbles glistening like something from a painting—hands stuffed in pockets as she sought to prolong this bittersweet interlude.

She walked with both shoulders squared, bumping into the two men as she went. This manner of hers—both coy and suggestive—displeased Mr. Minamoto.

"Why must you walk in such an unseemly way?" Mr. Minamoto said in a vexed tone. "Because I want to walk like this... That's all there is to it—when I occasionally come to places like this, it feels good to maintain an open and free state of mind." While replying to Mr. Minamoto and glancing at H, her heart became absorbed in the surrounding scenery. Mr. Minamoto quickened his pace to walk ahead of them. And though he strained to catch every word of their conversation, his flustered gestures—frantic attempts to hide his agitation from today's particularly spiteful Chiyoko—only revealed his true feelings more clearly.

“Hey Mr. H, don’t you think humans are such strange creatures when it comes to emotions? Thinking that I alone am pondering things those people wouldn’t even consider—fretting and agonizing over them—though such matters are more common among women, don’t you think? But perhaps men experience them too?”

While saying this, Chiyoko used her little finger to flick off the leaf clinging to Mr. H's back. "That's inherent to all humans—men and women alike. And as society grows increasingly complex, such things become necessary to some extent, so there's no helping it." "What an unpleasant notion! I certainly don't think I harbor such feelings myself—so I'm not the jealous type at all."

Chiyoko even found herself wishing H—the H she wanted to flaunt before Mr. Minamoto—would say something suggestive already. When Chiyoko stood on the log bridge overlooking the river visible through distant cedar forests, she gazed with dreamlike eyes, murmured “Ah…”, and looked ready to sit down right there. The indescribably vivid natural scenery—so vast and distant that her body seemed to dissolve into it as she gazed—filled the pale blue vapor-tinged sky with beautiful phantoms and breaths weaving nature’s melodies. The far-off cedar forest stood venerable enough to bow one’s head, while water at their feet—bearing faint white foam and small leaves—whispered to pebbled shores, its surface walking onward with a brimming smile.

Whenever encountering scenery of overwhelming beauty, Chiyoko would often experience moments—lasting mere seconds—where her vision and mind went blank as if fainting away, breath catching in her throat; today too this occurred, and forgetting she stood above a river on a narrow bridge, she took one or two steps forward as if entranced. H was holding the end of the sleeve. Chiyoko felt so elated that it seemed her body was gradually rising into the sky.

If Chiyoko could embrace Nature itself, she would hold it tight—clutching it against her own cherished, pure white rounded chest until marks formed—and while giving thanks in that very state, she felt she might suffocate; yet she even found herself wanting to do so.

Mr. H lightly pushed Chiyoko’s shoulder and started walking. “It’s not like we’re saying goodbye or anything, you know.” Chiyoko said in a cloyingly sweet voice, turned toward the bridge, and reached out her hand. Mr. H, without any particular meaning, made her grasp a dead leaf in that opened hand. Chiyoko, who had been gazing with eyes as entranced as if dreaming, suddenly brightened her gaze and came to a halt. Her tears welled up to the verge of spilling over. “How utterly cruel you are! Must you make me hold this unsightly thing when I’m in such a state? There are perfectly good white flowers right here beside us! You’re truly awful—must you torment me so?”

Unable to remain silent any longer, Chiyoko said in a loud voice, "This unsightly leaf with its saw-like edges has torn apart that exquisite, fragrant picture scroll of mine! If it had just turned to soil sooner, this wouldn't have happened, would it?" Chiyoko viciously tore the leaf and trampled it with her geta until it was embedded in the soil.

H, who had been silently watching, finally understood why Chiyoko was angry. Mr. Minamoto stood beside H and gazed with apparent concern at Chiyoko—her clear blue face resembling that of a willful queen tormenting her attendants—as she stared fixedly at her feet. None of the three spoke a word. Within that silence, only their nerves darted swiftly between them like malevolent spirits. Without anyone initiating it, the three began walking.

Mr. Minamoto began talking in rapid succession, as though he had finally caught hold of H.

Chiyoko's anger did not easily subside, yet she found herself drawn into the conversation between the two. H was telling a story that wasn’t quite like the cautionary tales Chiyoko had heard before. The corners of Chiyoko’s mouth began to relax against her will. Chiyoko—who disdained how joining in so soon after her earlier fury seemed to undermine her dignity—found herself unable to be the first to lower her head. With an awkwardly stiff smile from a stifled laugh, she walked away.

“It was my fault earlier—let’s make up now,” Mr.H also said. They found it difficult to say.

The two of them were waiting together, each hoping the other would be first to say “Enough” and propose reconciliation. As she walked, Chiyoko observed Mr. H’s demeanor. Bathed in plush, softly diffused light, his earlobes and the nape of his neck were demurely tinged a translucent crimson. At times he seemed self-conscious—the tip of the little finger that swept up his jet-black hair flushed as if touched by rouge, and those dazzlingly white teeth that occasionally glinted—Chiyoko noticed these details and involuntarily let slip a faint smile.

"I would be the one to reconcile," she resolved, making allowance for those girlishly beautiful qualities of his that resembled a maiden's charms.

With a heart free of reservations, she thought this. As if transformed into a different person, her face brimming with smiles, she came running up to the two of them.

The three of them exchanged glances and laughed—a laugh mingled with an inexplicable blend of emotions. And they mutually wrapped layer upon layer over the earlier incident as though not even a pinky finger would touch it, tucking it away in a corner of their hearts. Chiyoko, having realized that Mr. Minamoto’s demeanor had grown considerably more relaxed since she had been in a foul mood earlier, found herself feeling as though she had gotten angry on his behalf—or worse, that he had skillfully used the moment to his advantage. Before long, Chiyoko even came to know exactly what Mr. Minamoto was thinking now.

"I'm destroying the very plans I devised myself." Chiyoko sneered at herself through flared nostrils. "Ah well—it's done now anyway."

She also thought such things.

The three of them chatted about trivial matters, laughed at what ordinary people would find amusing, and went to Myōkaen. The three of them were searching here and there, trying to have a small bundle made. The men, who maintained an air of worldly innocence yet possessed jaded eyes and hearts, interpreted Chiyoko in all sorts of ways. Chiyoko, while watching the mole on the back of the hand belonging to the approximately nineteen-year-old man in a white work coat (uwappari) who was arranging the flowers she had ordered, listened to what his sister was saying.

"How old do you think she is?" Most of the men were saying she was three or four years older.

“She’s one of Raichō-san’s followers, I tell you!” “No way—that magazine photo didn’t have anyone dressed like that before.” “But look at that hairstyle—for her age, that kimono pattern’s way too bold. Can’t make sense of it.” “She’s definitely a woman either way.” The men exchanged these remarks intending not to be heard by Chiyoko, then broke into uproarious laughter. The man attaching water moss raised his face slightly and laughed with the group over Chiyoko’s head. He covered it with Western paper and handed it to Chiyoko.

“Mr. Minamoto, Mr. H, please come here.” She called out to the two men gazing at the water plants across the way, their pale throats slightly puffed out. Chiyoko removed three slender flowers from within. Mr. H placed his at his collar; Chiyoko tucked hers between her ribbon; and Mr. Minamoto spun his awkwardly between his index finger and thumb— “Since you’ve nowhere to put yours, just tuck it away here.” She dropped it from her narrow sleeve cuff into his sleeve pouch.

The three of them walked about here and there with bright faces, but due to the season, wherever they went was full of gaps. “It’s already nearly five o'clock．Let's go．You'll catch cold again—and if not that，you'll end up either unable to sleep tonight or one of the two．”

Mr. H adjusted Chiyoko’s askew shawl for her and said.

“Really now, Chiyo-chan—let’s go back.” Mr. Minamoto spoke with such feigned concern for Chiyoko that to her ears, it sounded so absurd she nearly wanted to retort. Yet thinking it pointless to ruin her carefully softened mood over something trivial, she ground it down with her back molars and swallowed it whole.

The three of them boarded the Yamanote train.

(8) Amidst Mr. Minamoto’s excessive boisterousness as he dragged a reluctant Mr. H into finger wrestling matches, Chiyoko fixed her gaze outside and watched the world gradually darken. "Men are truly creatures who can be reassured or troubled by the simplest of things," she thought. "Even if a woman nurses an unrequited love, should the man she pines for exchange but a single glare with another woman, no woman could feel so carefree as to find comfort in that—instead, she’d only grow more meticulous in her observations. They end up making all sorts of petty observations though—"

I shouldn't have thought it, yet before I knew it, I was. Mr. Minamoto felt inexplicably happy—not that he was completely at ease, but rather as if some weight had lifted from his heart, giving him the urge to speak in a booming voice. "I'd love to walk the pilgrimage route from Shikoku all the way through Kyushu, you know."

“The train was empty,” Chiyoko said without restraint. “How daring... Shall I take you there? Or would you rather it not be me?” Mr. H made this remark while clashing with Mr. Minamoto. “It’s not that I dislike it... Though I wouldn’t call it the pinnacle of perfection. Have you never thought such a thing before?” “I can’t say the thought never occurred to me, but going off all alone like that might not be prudent, you know.”

At that moment, Mr. H’s eyes shone clear like a child’s; in their approachable glow, a corner of Chiyoko’s heart fluttered rapidly as if dazzled. Then it seemed her mind’s eye directed toward him had clouded over—she wondered whether something wasn’t being cast across it. Upon alighting at Tabata, Chiyoko immediately said, “It feels rather chilly, doesn’t it?” and wrapped an extra shawl around herself. Wedged between Mr. H and Mr. Minamoto while clutching both their arms, she made her way along the gloomy path with cautious vigilance—as though bracing for some dreadful encounter—all while examining her own feelings with care.

“Even a path like this wouldn’t matter in an emergency, would it?” At the fork in the road, Chiyoko projected her voice as she spoke. “What do you mean by ‘emergency’?” “Well—for instance, if you were being chased or eloping.” “My, my—what grand ideas you’ve conjured! So if you imagine we’re eloping now, wouldn’t that be terrifying?” “Where does a three-way elopement exist? And eloping back to one’s own home… I could never possibly bring myself to such a state of mind.”

At the overly serious yet jesting reply, the trio burst into resounding laughter. Clustered together and talking loudly as they walked, the waiting rickshaw pullers stole furtive glances at Chiyoko's face and—

“Step right up! Bargain fares here—Hey! To Dangozaka...” They were spared from witnessing Chiyoko’s most detested mannerism—that peculiarly restless fidgeting. “Those bastards must think we’re drunk or something!”

Mr. Minamoto said this and kicked a stone.

As soon as footsteps sounded,

“I was worried you might be cold.” Mother said in a voice that was truly earnest and warm. “Thank you—today was most enjoyable, though I am a bit tired——” “That’s good to hear. He later said, ‘We should have had you bring an extra kimono,’ you know.” “No—that wasn’t the case at all. I came hurrying along, you see.” “But I might have thinned the hem a bit—this kimono really is easy to walk in, you see.”

Chiyoko, her cheeks reddening, looked at her mother and said. After dinner, the three of them seated Mother at the center and recounted the day's various events to her. Midway through the conversation, H—wearing an expression suggesting he had business to attend to—went to the Western-style room.

Leaning against the leather-upholstered sofa in the Western-style room, with dark shadows forming under his eyes, H was dozing. Treading softly across the plush carpet, Chiyoko settled into the nearby chair and watched H—eyes closed—appear genuinely exhausted. "How beautiful his eyelashes are." Such things Chiyoko was thinking. Chiyoko turned off the gas and positioned the lamp’s faint red glow so as not to shine on H’s face. She had been reading a book right there beneath it, but suddenly—

"Doing something like this—it’s just like I’m in love with H! So what if I do? It’s just doing good for others, after all." Just like that, she quietly left the room, joined the two in the tearoom, and began talking.

From time to time,

"Has he woken up yet?"

With some such thought, she laughed at herself. About two hours later, H emerged with a dazed look in his eyes. “Excuse me—I ended up dozing off...” As he laughed and said such things while rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand, the mother thought how childlike he looked— “Here you are, finally awake—as a reward for making such a racket in your sleep, I’ll give you this.” Having said this, she brought out a cut-glass jar filled to the brim with tiny Western sweets.

“Do you have any caramels?” Mr. H said coquettishly and had her give him the pink and brown ones, “Tonight, won’t you make me your child too, Madam?” he said. “You’re such a brazenly oversized child—to be a kid barely four years younger than Mother… How utterly shameless…” Chiyoko made a quip and snatched the pink caramel from H’s hand. Until late into the night，Chiyoko talked with Mother and the other two as a trio. She found herself imagining wanting to place a vividly red flower—the reddest imaginable—in the pale blue light, just the two of them alone with Mr. H, and simply sit there staring fixedly at his face.

"I wonder what I really feel about Mr. H. I—just by saying I like him—find myself wishing neither to retreat nor advance. Whichever way I go, I know it'll end in no good outcome."

On her way back, Chiyoko thought such things. After a long absence, Chiyoko returned to school and found herself surrounded by friends who treated her like a younger sister or child, pampering her until she went home.

"Anyone would do this sort of thing—being fussed over like some rare creature isn't something worth gratitude." Thinking this, she humored friends offering polite niceties as one might placate a small child. The homeroom teacher,

“You still look a bit pale.”

The homeroom teacher was saying things like that and ostentatiously looking at Chiyoko’s face. Chiyoko had not a single thing that felt unbearably joyful; she was thinking such thoughts. "I will go, and everyone will just keep staring at my face while they each gently pat my head with their palms—so very carefully." "In silence, they look at faces; in silence, they think; in silence, they understand each other's hearts and laugh—if only they could raise their voices together when laughing like that, how truly joyful that would be."

On the way back, she returned together with her close friend Koko. Slightly tired, Chiyoko felt a light dizziness on the train and staggered against Koko. “Why?”

Koko asked in her usual subdued voice, sounding shy. “It’s nothing, just a bit.”

In a small voice, she spoke; they looked at each other and laughed together—a laugh devoid of meaning or conscious intent, one Chiyoko had never experienced before—a pleasantness so profound it remained unforgettable even after returning home. From then on, day after day, Chiyoko went to school wearing an expression suggesting she had nothing on her mind, returned around four o'clock, and spent her days reading books, writing, and singing songs with H.

(9)

By the end of March, H's work had been completed, and he began returning to the house in Horai-cho.

Around that time, perhaps because her head's condition had again become slightly off, Chiyoko grew engrossed in utterly useless scribbling, throwing daily tantrums while fretting and bustling about. She would take to lining up books haphazardly across her desk and restlessly glance about, or—though having no real business to attend to—would fussily sharpen pencils late into the night. “I’ll definitely come up two or three times a week—it’s close by, I tell you.” On the day before he was to return, H said this.

“It would be better not to make such promises—if you can’t keep them, you’ll just end up feeling wretched, and if you start coming out of mere obligation, that’ll be the end of it.” Chiyoko, who had been copying sheet music, threw her pen onto the piano and glanced sideways at H with a weary look. “It’s nothing worth getting sad over,” she thought, yet her heart felt heavy. H stared dry-eyed between the pushed-aside drafting table and his own purchased flowerpot with equal attention.

“If you get bored, do come two or three times a day—I don’t mind at all. We’ll surely go somewhere nearby again soon, won’t we?” Chiyoko spoke in a tone suggesting everything had already been settled. After lying down and waking up, Chiyoko contemplated everything that had occurred from year’s end until now—a span of four months. It felt both impossibly distant and unnervingly immediate—H being someone she liked yet somehow came to dislike—and she found herself pondering so many things that she wondered, “What’s happening to me?” “Whether H stays by my side or not merely introduces trivial changes to my life—nothing more consequential than that—”

Even if Mr. H were to advance beyond merely saying he likes me—or retreat—he’d still be a bad person, I tell you. I felt that way. Passionate love wasn’t something you found everywhere in this world—and even if you were to have a love that wasn’t like that, it would still come to nothing. Either one became ideological lovers—those transcendent enough to gaze at each other with calm, thoughtful eyes and unflushed faces, interacting through quiet hearts while conjuring poems and songs to remain satisfied—or else there was nothing but unadulterated passion like Oshichi’s all-consuming love. One should never engage in love through half-baked impulses or fleeting whims—such love would inevitably leave behind unsightly scars too bitter to even look upon, then flee while making pathetic excuses.

"No matter what happens, I will not love H—if I did, we’d surely become unhappy. For even my mind’s eye would grow dim and corrupted like spoiled vision……" "If he and I support each other and keep moving forward in a way that seems happy, that is surely the best path." "I cannot love passionately—nor can I even manage single-minded love with this impoverished mind of mine, so surely even God must think this way……"

With a head honed to piercing clarity, Chiyoko thought through all this; when finished thinking, she gave a slight shake of her head and, eyelids faintly parted, buried her head in a pure white cushion, slipping into a saint-like serene and pure sleep. When Chiyoko awoke the next morning, she felt as though she had heard an unspeakably light song.

As she was leaving for school, H made a point to come out from his bedroom, “Are you going already? You’re leaving quite early—I overslept, so we couldn’t talk at all this morning. Your face looks a bit pale—why don’t you take something like Seishintan before you go? Here—quickly, bring the young mistress something light—” He ordered the maid standing by his side, “Let me see your forehead?” he said with evident concern. Chiyoko exposed her broad, man-like forehead while,

“It’s nothing. I don’t have a fever or anything,” she said hurriedly.

While crushing the silver pills between her teeth, "I'm terribly sorry about this, but since I'll be waiting, please make my bento into a sandwich. I'm feeling a bit unwell and don't want to eat rice..." The maid ran toward the kitchen with the rice bowl in hand, her face wearing a slightly troubled expression.

Chiyoko leaned against a pillar while looking at H, “You know, Mr. H—you really shouldn’t pay so much attention to me on a day like today.” “Even without reason, things come to mind, and besides—I dislike how it feels like we’re already saying farewell,” After saying such things, she laughed in a lonely manner. “Women—even when they’re quite old—find parting with someone who’s been in their home even for a single day utterly detestable. It somehow brings on this teary feeling, you know.”

Then immediately continuing, Chiyoko spoke; she felt as though something were welling up in her eyes.

H nodded one by one. Without uttering a single word aloud, he gave one final deep nod, then released a faint sigh and laughed. "Why does that person laugh in such a strained way?" Looking at H’s mouth, Chiyoko had a fleeting thought. A heavy weight began pressing down, pressing down upon Chiyoko’s emotions. Walking on the paving stones with her shoe tips, Chiyoko felt herself gradually shrinking within H’s watchful eyes.

Fleeing outside the gate, she walked with head bowed along the wide road that gleamed white and flat with apparent relief. All her friends, “You look pale.” “It’s written all over your face that you didn’t sleep well last night.” they said in tones half-teasing. When Chiyoko returned home—struggling to contain her unpleasant feelings—H’s laughter already echoed through the living room. As if performing an unexpected ritual, she first greeted her mother before turning her gaze to H’s face.

“Mother also asked me to stay—she said until evening, and since I’m free today anyway, I decided to do just that.” “That’s something anyone would be happy about!” Chiyoko grew amused at her own theatrical phrasing and gave a wry smile. “Lately I’ve been burying myself in Russian plays—sometimes I end up spouting actual stage lines! How amusing—we could stage a whole performance right here at home…”

Chiyoko tilted her head slightly like a small child would and laughed at Mr. H.

“Well, that’s all very well, but one can’t live every day as if it were a play forever, you know.” While saying this, H wore an expression like someone pursuing something that had retreated into the distance. “Since Father is home for dinner—a rare occurrence—let’s make something special, shall we?”

After saying this, Mother soon headed toward the kitchen,

“Call the greengrocer, will you? Ah, right—Mie hasn’t returned yet? Then you might as well remind them while you’re at it. About twenty potatoes should do.” she could be heard saying. “Being a wife is such a dreadful thing! Every single day, you can’t even read a book properly—just working, ordering maids around, breaking up the children’s squabbles—that’s all life becomes.”

While listening intently to her mother’s voice, she said as if to herself.

“As you age, your perspective will change!”

H was looking at a magazine while,

“No matter how much they dislike it, women find it difficult to become independent, you know.”

He also said such things.

“I do think I can live without being with a man.” “Having to sit there silently listening to men’s selfish tantrums, or becoming big with an unsightly belly and giving birth to not-so-clever children… Oh, how dreadful!” “So then—if you were such a person, what would you do if someone came along whom you could stand to live with your whole life?” “In that case, I would certainly make a promise with that person to live separately until death—and then, whenever we want to meet or talk, I think it would be better for us to do so without ever mentioning money.” “And don’t go having any children! Living out one’s days alone is far better than giving birth to foolish kids and fretting over them!”

“That may be true… but wouldn’t those without brothers like yours be troubled?” “That’s no concern at all! In this world, ninety-nine and a half out of every hundred women are practically bursting to get married.” “What do you mean by ‘ninety-nine and a half’?” “How odd...” “Because there must be those who are half wanting to marry and half thinking it trivial even if they did...” As they spoke this way, the two made faces as if something was looming right before them.

“So have you decided for yourself that you’re someone who can’t devote yourself to a husband?” “That’s not it at all! Men with comparatively less invested emotions than women wouldn’t get all huffy even if I didn’t fret over them. But I simply couldn’t put on an entirely different face from yesterday onward after marrying—fussing over my husband’s moods like some empty-headed doll. If he threw a selfish tantrum, I’d surely just give him a cold look and refuse to play along. I’d think him a fool, you see.”

Chiyoko declared in a clear tone, as if stating that no matter how much time passed, what she had just said would never change. "So you're truly resolved to maintain that sentiment?" H said solemnly with a thoughtful look in his eyes, staring fixedly at the area around Chiyoko's eyebrows. "I'm a woman who can live apart from men but cannot live without books and pens. Among women desperate to marry, God must have created someone like me as his diversion—an exceptionally selfish creature, I suppose…"

“…………”

Mr. H remained silent, gazing at the shadow of the shoji’s latticework. “What are you thinking about? Whether I marry or not has nothing to do with you—you shouldn’t dwell on such things!” Chiyoko laughed as though she had planted herself squarely upon H’s heart. “Chiyo-chan, come to the kitchen for a moment. I’ll teach you something good.”

From outside the sliding door, Mother called out. “What? I’ll come right now.” While thinking her legs—which looked as though tied with red crosswise sashes—were beautiful even to herself, she headed to the kitchen filled with purplish smoke. “Come here and watch what I do.” Mother was frying shrimp with her deft hands.

“What?” “Is that what you’re going to teach me?”

“Well!” Mother said pointedly. “You don’t know either, do you? Do you think I can’t fry something like this?” “I know perfectly well—this much! Yet here you are again trying to teach me such trifles for bridal training.” Chiyoko giggled shrilly and dashed back to the tearoom; H had apparently gone to the Western-style room but was nowhere in sight. Humming softly, she slid down the corridor to the Western-style room; H lay facedown on the long sofa.

“What’s wrong?” “Does your head hurt?” Knowing of H’s susceptibility to headaches, Chiyoko said gently. “No—it’s not that sort of thing—just a little.”

H said in a voice that sounded like he had been crying.

Chiyoko had mostly grasped what H had been thinking, but as if to avoid it— “That won’t do— Let me give you a little wine, and then I’ll massage your head for you, okay?”

From the cupboard, Chiyoko brought a small glass of white wine. H drank it with pursed lips like a daughter would. H, who was weak to alcohol, had the area around his eyes and cheeks flushed red. Chiyoko pressed H’s head between both hands for a brief moment. “Thank you, I’m already better.”

H said in a low voice. Chiyoko nodded as if everything had fallen into place, "I am happiest like this!"

Chiyoko was saying thus in her heart. While hearing the distant clattering of kitchen utensils and Mother’s voice instructing the maid, they sank into a deep meditation that could not be pulled back from. Chiyoko felt her thoughts grow so tangled she could sense blood throbbing up into her head; closing her eyes, clasping her hands around her knees, she remained utterly motionless. H opened his narrow eyes and found himself drawn to Chiyoko’s white neck and the curve of her rising chest as she sat composedly deep in thought; from his still-young body brimming with blood arose an uncanny temptation.

H stood up from the chair and paced about as if burying his feet in the carpet.

Chiyoko quietly opened her eyes and simultaneously flushed crimson; even she herself didn’t understand what it meant. Adjusting her collar as she rose, Chiyoko feigned unsteadiness in her steps and entered her room through the nearest door. With her heart surging like crashing waves, she faced the manuscript paper—trembling as she gripped her pen and stared fixedly at the paper’s surface. Into Chiyoko’s agitated heart crept something unseen yet palpable within tree bark, grass blades, and flower stamens; it transformed into a pleasant sensation that both caressed and tickled her spirit.

Tears spilled from Chiyoko's eyes, creating a round, seemingly innocent stain on the paper. In her heart: "I could never create a work as perfectly pure as my current state of mind. This paper must rejoice more in bearing these tearstains than in being marred by trivial characters—and I too am satisfied with this," she thought. When Chiyoko felt moved to shed tears, it was either a single drop—scorching hot—or else an outpouring like an evening downpour that threatened to drench her heart to its very core.

At that moment, her tears did not spill beyond a single drop. Chiyoko’s heart was filled with boundless joy, gratitude, and a spirit that blessed unseen things.

“Ahhh, how happy I am! Why do I possess a heart that can feel such joy?”

Smiling softly and shaking her head, her heart had become one that felt ready to leap up. “Mr. H, are you still wearing that sad face?” She called out from beyond the door.

“No—come in—I’m smiling.” Mr. H declared in a voice that seemed transformed by some new emotion.

When H opened the door, he saw into Chiyoko’s heart and laughed as though he understood everything.

The two sat before the piano, playing sonatas and Gondesard pieces, becoming lighthearted.

Just before dinner, her father returned. With eyes brimming with vitality, he looked at H’s face and— “Ah! You’ve come! Splendid.”

he exclaimed cheerfully in a booming voice while giving a slight bow. “Well now, you’ve gone and made another day’s worth of trouble for yourself!” Mr. H laughed as though nothing had happened earlier. H, “I can’t do that, because—” Her father seized upon him—forcing down this refusal while he grew drowsy from the weak wine—and caused a great commotion by singing boisterously and chattering away. Chiyoko watched the three enjoying themselves from the sidelines; with the unpleasant sensation of her personal space being violated, she mostly bit her lip even as the others laughed.

The majority of Father’s conversation consisted of urging H to take a wife. “Once you’ve turned thirty, it’s hardly too soon.”

Even Mother said something like this. “Hmm, perhaps so... But I still won’t be taking one—not until I meet someone who’d say ‘I’d die for this,’ you see.”

H was speaking in a slightly resigned tone.

"Why do adults meddle so much in other people's marriages?"

Chiyoko was thinking with the same feelings as a girl who had never peered into society.

They showed off newly acquired antiques, discussed current matters, then abruptly— “How about it, Mr. H—shall we dance? My wife here’s grown so plump she’s quite the spectacle!”

He exuberantly carried on, even going so far as to say such things. “How time flies, isn’t it? It’s already been about four months since then…” “Really now, you’ll soon need to prepare for summer.” The parents kept saying such things. H would sometimes look toward Chiyoko,

“There’s something I want to say, but...” He wore an expression that seemed to voice these unspoken words.

Around eleven o'clock, Mr. H said staying out too late would give him a chill and left. The sound of receding geta clogs ceased abruptly near Kazariido.

“Oh?”

Chiyoko murmured softly as she leaned out to peer into the darkness. H’s pale face floated within the pitch-black void. Feeling as though some spirit had grazed past her heart and vanished, “Goodbye—do take care not to catch cold.” No sooner had she spoken than tears began seeping out. “All alone...” The thought pressed insistently upon her. “Ugh...” Sighing heavily, she walked with downcast eyes through the long corridor’s twisting path, her heart leaden.

(10)

Day after day, nothing but days of foul mood clung to Chiyoko like a curse. In the mornings, she would typically drink milk and eat fruit. It was no longer uncommon for her to spend nights tormented by nightmares, her face deathly pale. "I feel so unwell—what's happening to me?" Chiyoko had recently taken to glaring at her own unsettled mind while forcing herself to sleep early even when she had tasks she wanted to do. Despite her efforts, she only continued worsening by degrees.

Her memory worsened; she flew into fits of temper; she became unbearably sad; harboring nothing but jumbled emotions, she grew unable to sit still or do anything. She had been drinking the phosphorus tonic meant for her younger brother. In barely ten days, the area above her eyes had hollowed out completely. “Ugh—not again?”

Mother was watching Chiyoko’s face with a fed-up expression as she returned from school.

Around two in the morning—a time when she should have long been asleep under normal circumstances—Chiyoko felt as though something large were pressing down on her body. Even if she tried to flee, she could not escape; struggling until she grew exhausted and fell asleep. The next morning, apparently after the maid who had folded her nightclothes said something, as soon as Chiyoko returned from school, her mother— “You’ve been sweating in your sleep lately—you really must be more careful!”

To the point where there had even been such remarks—for reasons she couldn’t fathom, Chiyoko’s head remained exhausted no matter how much she slept.

On the day the carp streamers were raised, while Chiyoko was watching the arrowwheel spinning atop a tall pole from the veranda, she suddenly became unwell, tumbled down to the earthen floor, and from then on became permanently confined to bed. From the moment she took to her bed, she had already become like someone who had been ill for months—so far beyond saving that she could no longer even manage to stagger about. Chiyoko maintained her usual neat appearance when ill, but as her condition appeared graver than before, she often refrained from making jokes, instead gazing blankly at the ceiling's wood grain or watching people bustle about.

H, who visited frequently, would always come to Chiyoko's bedside even for just a moment and leave behind some comforting words that might please her. At times, he would sit silently by her pillow for long periods and sing to her in a low voice. When Chiyoko—having worsened since yesterday—lay staring vacantly into space with slightly parted lips and exposed chest, leaning out from her nightclothes like someone who had lost all vitality, H approached on tiptoe and whispered to her mother seated beside her.

“I apologize for calling so late, Mrs., but since she wasn’t well yesterday—though I went out elsewhere tonight—I grew concerned and thought to stop by.” “It truly isn’t improving at all—what could be wrong? Once she recovers somewhat, we must have her convalesce elsewhere... And now of all times—these are her most vital years...”

“What could be wrong? Father has been terribly worried—he says it’d be such a waste to dismiss her as foolish now.” “There’s no chance of her becoming foolish—but if some raging fire flares up in her head, that would be dangerous. Shouldn’t we cool it?” “We needn’t go that far yet.”

Chiyoko, jolted into sudden clarity as if struck, became aware of a sharp pain near the top of her spine—as though being drilled by an auger. She shuddered, recalling how someone had once told her this was one of meningitis's telltale signs. Before her eyes flashed visions of herself—now utterly senseless—laughingly tearing apart the writings and collections she had painstakingly created when her mind was whole; of herself dying while gnawing at her nightgown collar and moaning. Trapped in these imaginings as always in such moments, she spilled tears in ragged torrents.

“What’s wrong?” “What’s wrong?”

The two asked quietly and gently. "No, it's just... If I were to die or become foolish like this, I'd truly be pitiable, you know."

Chiyoko was sobbing uncontrollably. Mother turned her face aside as if to avoid engagement and stared at her sleeve’s edge. “Please cease this worrying—I’ll mend you with my very heart. I’ve been prolonging my morning prayers for your sake—who would silently let someone so young die?” H spoke in a voice brimming with sincerity and brushed back the hair clinging to Chiyoko’s forehead. Like a chastened child, Chiyoko listened in silence until he finished, then gave a faint nod and closed her eyes as if slipping into sleep.

After about ten days had passed since she first took to her bed, she became able to get up and walk without staggering within less than twenty days. Her cheeks had grown considerably thinner, and she had become more prone to tears than usual. Mother and Father kept saying it would be good for her to go to Odawara in another four or five days, yet— “If you were even past twenty, I might feel somewhat at ease, but I can’t send a girl of your current age off alone, you know.” While she kept putting off giving a definite answer with such remarks, persuaded by Mr. H and Father, it was decided that Mother would also go, taking her younger brother along with one maid. From the very day it was decided, Mother suddenly became restless, tidying up her younger brother’s clothes, taking off her own haori, and busying herself each day alongside the maid who would accompany them.

Amidst everyone’s bustling activity, Chiyoko stood apart, doing nothing but fidgeting with the books and manuscript paper she was to take along, feeling completely at a loss about what to do or how to proceed. “You still haven’t fully recovered, you know—to become so helpless like this—” Seeing her snap “I don’t know what to do!” and throw a tantrum, Mother said this. “How about this—given how warm tomorrow seems likely to be too, if we go then, I can even see you off.”

Father came out with this. While discussing something intently, the two seemed to have settled on going—between having the maid bring out the dress case and making a call to Odawara, Father was examining the timetable. “Chii-chan, off to bed now—we’re leaving tomorrow, you know? Be ready for it…” He called out to Chiyoko, who lay engulfed in pure whiteness. Chiyoko snapped her eyes open like a chick and remained immersed in the restless air without responding.

The anxiety struck her that leaving without seeing H even once—even if just for ten or twenty days—might mean they wouldn’t meet again for ages. If only he’d come tonight—or if not that, then early tomorrow morning— She’d been thinking such things too. She pictured a monotonous seaside life gazing at Hakone’s cliffs and blue waters, delighting in imagined moments like dipping sweat-damp feet into cool morning water when heat haze shimmered over the sea. Like any young woman on a journey’s eve, she trembled with inexplicable anticipation.

When she failed to sleep soundly and woke early that night, her mother and the maids were already clattering about doing something. Still in her nightclothes, Chiyoko began tackling the things she needed to organize herself. As if fearing someone might peek inside, Chiyoko locked the cabinet containing her writings, put away everything that was out into the bookcase, and surveyed the strangely bare room with the look one has when moving.

“Chiyo-chan, bring what you need to pack. We’ve already finished our part completely...” Though Chiyoko had spent a full week deciding and preparing these items when told this, an uneasy feeling still came over her. After anxiously fussing about, she ended up plucking out memos that wouldn’t even fit inside—her eyes wavering nervously—and had Mother pack them into the case. Even after rushing back to her room with nothing left to do, Chiyoko stared vacantly into the garden’s faintly warm air, watching leaves gradually deepen their bluish luster. Despite the pleasant weather settling in, she felt her own pallid body being increasingly pressed upon by the surroundings.

“If only H would come—what would happen if I went over there and died just like that?”

Chiyoko muttered such things to herself for no reason.

"If I were his lover, I’d run to meet him even for just a moment." She thought this too. Lost between thinking and not-thinking—her mind adrift—she jolted at sudden footsteps behind her and whirled around to find Mr. H standing there with a grave expression.

“Oh!” Chiyoko nearly threw herself at H. That H had come when she was thinking such things and making such a face was unbearably delightful. “Oh! I had no idea at all—when? “Oh, really!” Saying such things, Chiyoko pressed her cheeks with both hands—a habit she had when happy—and gazed at the meeting point of H’s collar. “Were you that surprised?” “If I drop by without thinking, you’re leaving this afternoon, huh? Are you feeling a bit better today?”

“Well, it’s fine if it’s fine, but since yesterday I’ve been oddly excited—so much that I get a little dizzy sometimes—and… there was something bothering me too…” “What? Something’s bothering you? Surely you don’t mean it’s an unlucky day or something?” “However much I try—Oh, it’s just like this. If I were to go over there today without meeting you, and suddenly take a turn for the worse or get swept away by a huge wave—how sad that would be! And then, if by chance I were to die,”

“Mr. H—” “You’d say something like ‘Mr. H—’ wouldn’t you……” Chiyoko said that and laughed. “Oh, such—but well, that’s good, isn’t it? If I give you a letter, will you give me one too? Hmm?” “How should I know? Besides, I can’t exactly write in secret, and I don’t care for writing out of mere obligation… you know…” “Then as much as possible, okay? The seaside from now on will be nice, you know—so quiet… You mustn’t write or read too many different things, you shouldn’t study—just play around with a foolish feeling… Since Father will likely be coming from Saturday through Sunday, I’ll come up too if it works out.”

“Will you really come?” “But you can’t count on it—there might not be anyone to meet you for about twenty days, you know.”

“Yes, truly—do return after twenty days with a complexion so improved you’d hardly recognize yourself from today.” “You will, won’t you?” The two stood discussing these matters. “Mr. H and Chiyo-chan, won’t you come to the Western-style room? I’ve made tea...” At her mother’s loud summons, Chiyoko pushed H from behind into the Western-style room. “Chiyo-chan, since there are only two handkerchiefs here, take out five or six with your name embroidered.”

Being told this, she rattled the silver lock and opened the second drawer of the Western-style chest in the storehouse. As she sorted through the piled handkerchiefs one by one, her eyes caught a blue paper with finely written brown ink—tucked between her mother's small linen handkerchiefs. With a faint smile trembling from curiosity, she pinched it between her index finger and thumb to extract it. The paper had been folded four ways with writing on both sides. By examining each meticulously formed character, she could surmise it was a letter addressed to her from Shinobu of Iidamachi—and even imagine its contents.

"Why did he feel compelled to write such a letter?" Chiyoko thought this without changing her expression, beginning to examine it with settled calmness. "A love letter that's every bit a clichéd love letter." Though the letter came from a man three years her senior, Chiyoko critiqued it with the gaze of a woman preoccupied with affections for someone younger. "My emotions aren't so unsophisticated that I'd blush or shed tears over such a trite love letter. Even if I wrote a loveless letter now, it would contain more genuine emotion than this—but were I to become his lover, it would surely end in disappointment—to be his partner, my intellect would prove too burdensome."

While thinking this, Chiyoko mentally instructed Shinobu: "When one loves love itself, both sorrow and joy are felt in their purest forms—unfiltered and unalloyed." She refolded the letter, tucked it back into place, and closed the drawer. With a light shake of her head and a laugh, she went to the Western-style room—when her oblivious mother remarked "That took ages," she merely laughed again. Leaning against the deep chair, Chiyoko gazed at Mr. H's forest-thick hair and thought: Shinobu could never imagine that the letter he'd poured his heart into writing three restless hours ago—standing right where she now leaned—would be read by her with such detachment. She even let slip a sardonic laugh.

"At my age, if I were sent a letter like this, I should have turned bright red…" Thinking such things, she was suddenly overcome by a farcical mood.

Wearing a crisp striped omeshi with a chirimen haori over it, Chiyoko boarded the train from Hakusan with Mr. H, her father, and her younger brother.

(11) While being rocked by the train, Chiyoko found herself both reluctant to part from H and desiring to spend even a single day together with him in one place. Chiyoko—who had been waiting for her mother (supposedly arriving by car) while intently watching her father purchase tickets—found herself gripped by an inexplicable restlessness. Walking briskly along the platform with her companions, Chiyoko entered the reserved second-class car near the middle that the redcap had secured.

The car was empty, and besides Chiyoko and her group of five people, there seemed to be no other passengers. Chiyoko, who had taken a seat at the very end, quietly watched as Mr. H and her father busied themselves placing luggage on the overhead rack and securing the bag containing her medicine so it wouldn’t topple over—all while thinking, I wish he’d just stop fussing and stare fixedly at my face instead... She was thinking something along those lines. As the conductor passed by announcing departure was imminent, Mr. H—who had gotten off and stood below while replying to her mother and the others as they belatedly expressed gratitude for seeing them off with phrases like "Do come visit if you have time"—produced from his sleeve, which she hadn’t noticed until now, Chōgyū’s five volumes that Chiyoko had often said before, "Older ones are better, so let’s look for some and buy them, okay?"

“Please do read this—is that alright?” Mr. H placed them into Chiyoko’s hands. “Oh, thank you so much—truly, nothing could be better! I did mention it earlier, you know. Are these yours?” “Yes, I bought them last year or thereabouts—since I’m not specializing in the field after reading through them generally, I thought they didn’t matter much and simply tucked them away... There might be some lines or dots marked here and there, but... well, you’ll have to pardon that.”

While H was saying such things, the train began to move.

"Well then, goodbye—take care of yourself." H said this and removed his hat. "You really shouldn't have gone to such trouble, Ah." “Truly, thank you ever so much.” While her parents continued expressing their gratitude to Mr. H, who was walking alongside the still slowly accelerating train, Chiyoko kept her gaze fixed on his eyes as though determined not to forget them. When the train’s speed increased slightly, Chiyoko thrust her upper body out in one continuous motion,

“Thank you——goodbye” When she pulled her head back in after watching Mr. H—who stood waving his hat and whom she could still see—she truly felt as though she were setting off on a journey.

Pressed into the corner, she chewed on the book she had received from H for no reason. In the middle was a photograph H had taken during his travels in Manchuria, capturing a flock of Mongolian sheep chasing river ducks. As she looked at it, she wondered whether he remembered when he had shown it to her during her illness some time ago and she had said, "How lovely—it really captures that sense of something shared between us, doesn't it?" After passing through five or six stations, her mother said this to Chiyoko.

“You seem rather tired, hmm? It might do you good to look at the scenery or get some sleep.” “You should do that—you look pale.” The fact that even her father was saying such things made Chiyoko feel petty, as if the very depths of her heart had been laid bare. Chiyoko obligingly closed her eyes and leaned against her mother’s shoulder. Leaning against the soft shoulder and listening to the simple yet meaningful clattering sound deep in her ears, Chiyoko, who hadn’t fully fallen asleep, found herself enveloped until she had gently drifted into a dream.

When she awoke feeling refreshed again on her own, they had already come to within about four stations of Kōzu. “You slept well, didn’t you? Your complexion has improved—you look refreshed.” Mother and Father exchanged glances and laughed as they fluffed up the flattened parts of Chiyoko’s hair and straightened her disheveled sleeves. The maid was cutting dried apricots into small pieces, sandwiching them between bread, and feeding them to her younger brother in bite-sized portions. Chiyoko watched this with an innocent gaze. Her parents were laughing together about the ongoing issue with the Tamagawa property—the owner’s greediness, the half-baked actions of the man mediating the deal, and such.

Listening to that conversation while observing both the book and her brother eating his bread, Chiyoko remained in an unfocused, scattered state of mind until alighting at the station. When boarding the Yunohara-bound train connecting from the station, Chiyoko's group found three provincial geishas from Odawara who had entered before them—women so rustic they scarcely warranted mention. Facing such types as she always did, Chiyoko again assumed a queenly bearing. With even the slightest shift of posture, she arranged her manner to appear thoroughly the city-bred young lady and a woman accustomed to refined company.

The three women looked at Chiyoko’s prim kimono styling and hair arrangement with foolish, unbecoming eyes. In the end, while fully aware of things about Chiyoko they had long known, they proceeded to critique her through coded hand gestures as if oblivious.

Mother, “How utterly tasteless! Even I have more style than that.” Whispering such things, she poked Chiyoko like a girl ten years younger would. Chiyoko smiled with her eyes, glanced at her mother’s profile, then looked at the three businesswomen. Both the roundness of her cheeks and the beauty of her eyes—Mother possessed them with a thoughtfulness and loveliness that far surpassed theirs. Whether it was her kimono or her belongings, from start to finish, Mother was the more beautiful.

Chiyoko became inexplicably happy, shrugged her shoulders, and bumped her own shoulder against her mother’s. The three women appraised Chiyoko while she scrutinized them in turn, their gazes locked in that distinctively feminine brand of mutual criticism.

Chiyoko's party alighted from their carriage in front of Yōjōkan Recuperation Hall, where a man who had come to greet them loaded the numerous trunks and dress cases onto a cart and pulled it away toward the sound of crashing waves, the sandy path crunching beneath its wheels as he went. The man, with practiced flattery, spoke in a light tone about how eagerly the master and mistress had been waiting and how the children looked forward to hearing stories of Tokyo, punctuating his words with loud laughter.

(Twelve) When Chiyoko's party appeared reflected in the shop's glass door, the housewife who had been working in the kitchen with her sleeves tied back exclaimed as she came out bringing the children along from afar: "Oh welcome—we've truly been waiting for you."

[She] came out from the distance, bringing the children along as she spoke. “Ah, we’re imposing on you again—it’s just that her head has been a bit unwell lately…” The mother replied to this, and the two women—who had known each other since their youth—exchanged endless bows in a manner that seemed interminable. Chiyoko gazed fixedly at the distant, expansively blue sea as though drawn to its surface. "Oh my, how dreadful—poor dear, she’s grown a bit thin, hasn’t she?"

Even though Chiyoko knew the housewife had said this and was looking at her face, she did not turn toward that direction. Sitting in the same second-floor room as during her previous visit, Chiyoko felt gladness at how the dizzyingly blue sky and sea merged into a purple haze at their border, at the sight of pure white waves breaking apart, and at the distant echoing voices of boat songs.

Leaning against the railing, Chiyoko gazed endlessly, endlessly captivated by the view. “Change into your kimono and go to the beach. Hurry up.” Father said this and had Chiyoko take off her haori from behind. Chiyoko walked through the deep sand—lifting each foot high with every step—wearing a purple arrow-patterned kimono with a red-tinged brocade obi tied in a small horizontal arrow shape and red-thonged sandals. As if rejuvenated, Father picked up pebbles to throw and played tag with the wave crests alongside his young son. As if it were someone else’s affair, Chiyoko bowed her head before nature’s vastness. Into Chiyoko’s heart—grown more sentimental than usual during convalescence—the thundering waves permeated with solemn dignity.

With each surge and retreat of the waves washing over them, the pebbles emitted modest circular glows. Where these gleams collided, unknowable sentiments and harmonies dwelled. And with every ebbing wave, these humble stones—rubbing against each other in mutual accord—recited a hymn praising infinite nature. Chiyoko was spellbound by this subtle yet profound sound for a time, but when she came to her senses, she found it pitiful that she—who could lose herself so utterly to such a sound—was nothing more than human.

As if groping through darkness, Chiyoko melted into some unseen place, concealing her form as she searched for the pride she had carried until now. Everything she could grasp, everything she could hold onto, was nothing but gratitude toward nature. With her heart and body filled with gratitude, Chiyoko sat watching the reddening sunset sky and the high-tide waters that had deepened in blue, her face bearing a noble, composed artistic expression, unaware of the passage of time.

The sea’s broad bosom felt its pulse intensify with each passing moment. The chest that until moments earlier had pulsed like a nun’s now began to throb-throb unmistakably with each breath—drawing in and expelling all the world’s sorrows and joys, fortunes and misfortunes. The blueness deepened as this pulsation quickened. The sea’s violent arrhythmia—like the instant when a young virgin is swept beneath a man’s ardent breath—sent its throb-throb reverberating through sky and earth alike as it surged toward Chiyoko.

As if responding to that, Chiyoko’s pale red, heaving chest throbbed in an erratic rhythm that soon threatened to spiral into madness. Yet Chiyoko made no attempt to move. The water surged and ebbed before her, each time baring white teeth to smile at her heart before dissolving back into the distant blue. “I can feel nature so intensely it hurts,” she thought. Chiyoko was so overjoyed she wanted to jolt upright and submerge herself in that azure expanse.

“Aah—”

Chiyoko's body—her heart filled to the point of unbearable fullness—sank into sand that glistened and twinkled with gentle radiance. The sand, sifting... sifting from all directions, buried Chiyoko's body as it rustled around her. "Aaaaah—" Chiyoko's unadorned, unfeigned inner voice transformed into a delicate sound wave that vanished utterly into the quiet air.

Led by the maid who had come to meet her, Chiyoko returned to the inn with a vacant look on her face. Even after sitting down at the dining table with what felt like a seaside state of mind, her thoughts remained captivated by the beckoning sound of the tide—to the point where she found herself picking up grains of pure white rice one by one with the tips of her crimson chopsticks and eating them. To H, who had to work devotedly each day under a rather dim light in the dusty capital with no one to console him, she sent a brief note on a picture postcard.

Wrapped in a comfortable nightgown with white covers spread corner to corner, Chiyoko had fallen asleep to the laughing tide's lullaby; by six o'clock when she awoke, she had dreamed of nothing but H. The moment she left her bed, she went straight to the beach and dipped her feet into the chilly water. Her feet—still warm and stuffy from sleep—felt as though being softly tickled.

As she did so, she felt her emotions clarify into an unwavering mind that could perceive things distinctly. When she slightly loosened her fingers—which had been pressed together after scooping water from her untouched white palm and lightly touching it to her lips—the water trickled down like a thread, shimmering in five hues. Thus began Chiyoko’s day, filled with nothing but happiness throughout. Day after day she spent gazing at the sea and speaking to it. And so her complexion improved daily while her depleted mind gradually stilled itself—imperceptibly at first.

Chiyoko was so captivated by the sea that she had no leisure to observe or criticize the surrounding travelers. From waking until sleeping, sitting on the beach and spending her days was what pleased Chiyoko most—so much so that her heart had taken on a childlike quality. The books she had brought intending to read remained piled atop the alcove case, their lightweight covers occasionally fluttering in the sea breeze that blew through, and not a single character had been filled in on the manuscript paper either—yet her mother, if anything,

“That’s for the best,” she said.

As evening approached, Chiyoko wanted to walk through the geisha-filled town of Odawara. Though this occurred after she had grown quite accustomed to staying there, sights like men reeking of seaweed—some clutching geisha with faces and figures so unsightly one might wish to shut their eyes, violet handkerchiefs wrapped around their necks—or others glittering garishly in gold-toned attire gathering with vapid, ignorant expressions; or women in Hakone’s mountains at dusk, their clogs clattering along paths where small lights floated in purple mist as they called out “Good evening—”, were both rather novel to Chiyoko, who lived in western Tokyo, and instructive of life’s varied complexities.

On a drizzly day, Chiyoko—wearing a dark blue snake-eye umbrella, red-lacquered clogs, and a kimono with large patterns—went to buy books by the train depot. The geishas, idle in the rain, peered out their windows at Chiyoko’s figure and watched her take long, brisk strides as she walked, “She’s got no sex appeal, huh?” and “That’s how they walk in Tokyo, huh?” and things like that. As if already accustomed to such things, she walked straight ahead without even looking down, going on and on. The men passing by would step aside a pace or two for Chiyoko,

It made her want to let out a muffled laugh. When Chiyoko walked straight into the spacious store and immediately began boldly scanning the books from shelves to counter, the clerk seated at the register watched wide-eyed, “Welcome—please take your time...” he said with a faltering manner.

That day, she bought *The Eve* and *O-Kinu* and returned home. "Books are more expensive than in Tokyo, even though there's nothing decent here anyway," she kept thinking as she walked. In the evening, she went out to the veranda overlooking the pitch-black sea below and began reading the purchased book under the bright electric light. Yet Chiyoko felt an irreconcilable dissonance between her surroundings' atmosphere and the book she was reading. Unable to bear this mismatch, she deliberately exchanged it for *Salome*.

In the darkness after turning off the light—where only her own pulse, the sea’s pulse, the whiteness of breaking waves, and the pallor of her face existed—Chiyoko sank into a meditation so boundless that she seemed to cast a precious line of poetry into eternity: *Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean—roll!* To the sea’s surface that throbbed with a dark, powerful pulse in a low, solemn voice. When her beautiful, dreamlike state was shattered by the clamorous sound of gagaku music and she returned to reality—in that fleeting moment of emotional transition—Chiyoko realized H had become a blue streak of light passing before her eyes.

In the midst of clamorous sounds, Chiyoko considered H as a human being who had to work and find joy entirely alone—as if gently enclosing only his own quiet heart within that noise. As these thoughts swirled through her mind, she suddenly recalled: "I may formally live surrounded by many people, but they’re merely those who would cling to me for dear life if separated—spiritually, whether in joy or sorrow, I must remain ALL ALONE……"

When I had said this, “Wouldn’t it be better to remain alone—free to think without reservation whatever one wishes—than endure two disagreeable, incompatible spirits being forcibly bound together?”

I remembered what I had said. "No matter how you consider it," I thought, "for a man his age not to have a wife seems pitiful—but—"

“Because he tasted unexpected bitter sorrow while still possessing a youthful heart, he’s grown less capable than most of considering marriage on a purely emotional basis!” “But I mustn’t lay hands on his life—if I do, misfortune will almost certainly follow.” Such thoughts had occupied her mind. That her life’s rhythm should grow disordered because of one man alone—that she should feel this clinging sensation she couldn’t shake—Chiyoko found it disagreeable, an unpleasant thing indeed.

No matter what she said, the fact that she loved H was something that Chiyoko’s heart—in whatever state—could not suppress,

“No, that’s not it,” she could not make herself believe. As if trying to wipe away the thoughts she had harbored until now, she recited Salome’s lines from memory in a singsong voice: “Jokanaan! I am enamored with your body! Your body is as white as lilies in a field where no sickle has ever passed.”

“Your body is like the snow on the mountain peaks—” Chiyoko, who had closed her eyes and at some point even begun gesturing, the moment she realized the footsteps approaching from behind belonged to a young man, snatched up the switch and darted diagonally past the dumbfounded greasy-faced man into her room. As soon as Mother saw Chiyoko’s face, “Tomorrow, perhaps the children, Mr. Minamoto, and Mr. H will come—they’ll arrive here at four o’clock...”

Mother said in an utterly delighted voice. "Right—that sounds good. Let's go meet them." Chiyoko replied in a tone that suggested otherwise.

Looking at her mother's face holding the half-read magazine, Chiyoko felt she could not help contemplating what time truly meant.

That night, until quite late, Mother talked to Chiyoko about her own youthful days and the hardships she had endured with her mother-in-law. Chiyoko believed that the hardships of being a mother-in-law were a suffering she herself would never experience in her lifetime. The time until four o'clock the next day felt interminably long.

The possibility that H might come piqued Chiyoko’s curiosity. Though they had waited with moderate anticipation and rejoiced with measured joy, only the children and Mr. Minamoto alighted from the train. The children surrounded Mother and her little brother, recounting everything from how chicks had recently hatched and a single rose bloomed to mice appearing in my room and increased tears in shoji screens. Mother laughed while listening to their reports—pulling each child’s hand and patting their heads.

Amid unprecedented liveliness for such an unseasonable time, this normally quiet house—though filled with many guests—resounded with high-pitched laughter. In the glass-walled recreation room, everyone gathered in a circle to play cards and sing; Chiyoko even played an organ that was slightly out of tune. The children of this house, who had been uneasy about Chiyoko being a woman, now had the two youngsters nestled between her three brothers, their cheeks flushed with evident delight.

Everyone continued laughing and making noise until around midnight, but taking Mr. Minamoto’s retiring first as their cue, the guest children went to sleep in the spacious lower hall just for that day.

Mother kept her diary, and Chiyoko jotted down brief impressions before going to bed with a feeling riddled with unsatisfied voids. The next day, after rolling around in the sand all day, the children were taken back to Tokyo by Mr. Minamoto. Knowing that Mr. Minamoto had been making a face suggesting he wanted to be alone with her before leaving, Chiyoko deliberately kept avoiding him. Unable to remain in the room that had suddenly become like the calm after a storm, Chiyoko slid barefoot down the sandy slope from the back, emerged onto the beach, and sat upon the smooth, cool sand. A nameless sadness had filled Chiyoko’s heart.

The thought of immersing her deep-hued body in this pale mouse-gray tint and weeping with such emotion struck her as something exquisitely beautiful and delicately fragile. She felt as if each tear that fell softly—softly—one by one were pouring out her innermost thoughts. She sobbed uncontrollably over something incomprehensible, like an infant. Even as she wept, Chiyoko’s heart—grieving yet skipping in supreme delight—persisted.

When her long sleeves and shoulders had grown quietly cold, dampened by the night dew, Chiyoko returned to her room, her face filled with laughter. And then she soon fell asleep.

Three days later, on a sweltering day, Chiyoko was invited by a fourteen-year-old boy and went to pick lotus flowers at Komine Field, a small hillock. The boy was usually slightly hunched, looking downward with a large forehead that gave him a nervous air and lips that were absurdly red and prominent. The sight of small curls resting against his slender white neck was unbearably delightful to Chiyoko. He still had a voice as clear as a six-year-old child's and smooth skin.

Holding each other’s hands, they took one narrow path along a marsh encircled by woods and another path through fields that rose like hills. The sound of their sandals made a sound that harmonized with the season at this time.

They walked a considerable distance in continued silence. “Still quite a ways to go. I’m a bit tired.” When Chiyoko spoke in a manner that seemed utterly reliant on this little companion of hers, the boy flushed red and—

“Just a little bit more…”

he said in a pleasant voice and turned around. “You’re called Tatsuchan, aren’t you? Do you know my name?” Chiyoko said, peering into his face with a laugh. “Yes!” “And mine?”

“Yes.” “What do you call me? “Go on, say it.” “But… they call you Chiyoko-chan…” “Oh, so that’s really what they call me? …It’s a cute name, don’t you think?”

Exchanging such words and laughing together, they reached Komine. Amidst blue-green grasses, white and purple lotuses bloomed with dazzling brilliance.

Tatsuchan immediately bent down and began picking flowers, exclaiming "How beautiful! This one’s beautiful!" as he gathered them. Chiyoko searched meticulously, gathering them little by little, occasionally calling out in a high-pitched voice, "Oh, Tatsuchan!" she would call out to him and sing songs. “You know, there are snake holes here—if you’re not careful and fall in, it’s dangerous…” Tatsuchan, who had been standing a little apart from Chiyoko, spoke in a tone that suggested he thought he had to protect her himself.

“Oh, so if I were about to fall, would you help me? If a snake comes out, I’ll say to you, ‘Please chase it away!’ But if you come without running away, you’ll have to get bitten first!” “Yes.”

Tatsuchan's reply, so earnest and resolute, struck Chiyoko as almost wasteful. "Right now he's like this," she thought, "but in four or five years he'll turn into someone with a voice and appearance I dislike—a boy I'll find unbearable." She thought such things. Tatsuchan picked the flowers one by one as if pursuing some grand purpose. When he had gathered so many they overflowed both hands, Tatsuchan smiled bashfully and—

“I’ll give you all of these—they’ve become quite a lot…” With that, he had her hold a pale purple cloud-like bouquet in her arms.

Chiyoko, carrying an armful of flowers so abundant they made her arms feel tired, walked back along the path they had come, side by side with Tatsuchan. At the hill where a pea field had been narrowly cultivated, he plucked from the root a single vine laden with flowers resembling white butterflies or tied red ribbons, and draped it over Chiyoko’s other arm. While Tatsuchan was being kind to Chiyoko in various ways,

"What kind of person does he think I am? I wonder if he’ll remember me forever and keep caring for me… He treats me too much like a child." Thinking such thoughts, she suddenly recalled something—like a young girl—and flushed crimson. The way this boy—who seemed somehow nervous—would occasionally blush or offer faint smiles struck Chiyoko as utterly endearing. As she gazed at that tightly closed white forehead of his, thinking how soon even this would grow oily and darken in color, no matter how beautifully or nobly it appeared now, the revolting image of what would inevitably follow—so repulsive it made her shudder—rose before Chiyoko’s eyes, and she found herself unable to stroke or touch it.

Chiyoko returned home adorned with flowers. She filled a large cup to capacity with blossoms and arranged the pea vine in the alcove's flower holder. Having arranged flowers in a rounded moribana style within a small cup, Chiyoko moved with stealthy steps to place it on Tatsuchan's desk bearing the Madonna picture, then bowed lightly to the housewife smiling through the lattice shadows before slipping into her room.

Mother,

“My, you gathered so many! Was it a nice place?” She asked in a cheerful voice. “Yes, quite—but there’s a narrow stretch on the way that you couldn’t possibly pass through, so we had to go around from Mr. Ninomiya’s side. Shall I take you there?” While replying, Chiyoko thought of sending a note to Mr. H along with these still-beautiful flowers. That day too passed without any deep thinking, without recalling or pondering anything.

The night was dark, with nothing but stars filling the sky.

It seemed there had been a catch, for the shore flickered with torch baskets and human body heat, the red glow swaying upon waves as if moving to carry news to those living on the distant shore. The sound of a horn shell being blown seemed ready to pull her heart away somewhere. Standing beside her mother watching those feverish lights, Chiyoko found herself made to feel by that horn's call as though she had fled the capital alone to this place, bearing endless sorrow.

“It looks like quite a haul, huh?” While gazing at her mother’s profile as if it were something rare, the rounded quality of Mr. H’s voice welled up within her heart. Chewing on the stiffened tip of a brush that seemed perfectly suited to this place, she began writing a letter to Mr. H in handwriting even clumsier than usual. Chiyoko, who had a habit of being unable to rest unless she tore up the paper whether the opening was good or bad if it didn’t satisfy her, created draft after draft, throwing them haphazardly aside.

When she finally finished writing it and read it back, it wasn’t a letter she particularly liked—but Mother had come and was waiting, either to add some postscript here or to write her own name beside Chiyoko’s. Mother, who had been downstairs discussing local land prices with a housewife, came up laughing. "Oh, what did you write?" “To Mr. H—Mother, if there’s anything you need to add, please write it now. I want to send this before the flowers wilt…”

“There’s absolutely no reason to send letters to Mr. H—and anyway, you wrote him a postcard right after we arrived here, but he hasn’t so much as uttered a word in reply. Why must you fuss over this?” “I’m not writing because I want a response—I just wrote because I felt like it.” “I don’t approve of girls writing letters to men in the first place.”

“I showed you what I properly wrote—there’s nothing wrong with sending it that way! What’s more, I’m even writing Mother’s name in my own hand…” “Well, that may be so, but still…” “No matter what you say, I wouldn’t write some invisible-ink letter!” While saying this, Chiyoko wondered why they had to make such a commotion over a single letter.

“What nonsense!” After this thought flashed through her mind, she immediately said: “You’re wavering over whether to approve or disapprove of me sending this, aren’t you, Mother? If you consent, then either write your name here or simply say yes.”

With a straightforward gaze that seemed to say it was better to quickly settle anything once and for all, she spoke. “Really now, that’s a tricky thing to consider.” Having given a noncommittal reply, Mother kept picking out characters here and there from the long, meandering letter spread before her. The two of them remained silent, each lost in their own thoughts, listening to the sound of waves mingled with the laughter of small children and a maid that echoed toward them. “Mother, isn’t all this just too trivial? You call yourself a woman of reason—so why are you wavering like this?”

Mother remained silent, her eyes somehow restless as she looked around here and there. “Ah, if that’s how it is, then it’s too much trouble—let’s just stop trying to send it.”

As soon as she said this, she gathered up the long letters and began tearing them to pieces one after another. The sound of the thick, pure white paper being torn into tiny fragments emitted a soft, sorrowful shredding noise. With eyes that seemed resolved—"Do I care about anything?"—she nevertheless felt a thin coldness seeping through her. "It’s not a letter worth regretting even if turned to scrap paper, nor is the handwriting of such quality, nor is there anyone worth sending it to in the first place." Chiyoko said such things in a low, deliberate voice. Mother silently watched her do this, but

“That’s right, that’s for the best—things like that are easily misunderstood…” She said this perfunctorily while looking at the letters reduced to tiny scraps. Through gaps in the crumpled paper, glimpses of the finest lotus flowers she had selected peeked out, making Chiyoko feel suffocated. As if trying to dispel the lingering tension between them, they then noisily amused themselves by composing grandiose haiku to their hearts’ content. Seeing Chiyoko’s apparently carefree manner, her mother happily scribbled trivialities as they laughed together—yet for Chiyoko, this merriment brought no joy beyond satisfaction at having successfully performed her role.

For a long while she lay awake, Chiyoko gazed at the faces of her mother, the child, and the small-nosed maid, her eyes brimming with tears. During this time, blinking her eyes open and shut repeatedly, she couldn’t help thinking about H—with whom she had grown strangely close—and herself.

"I am not at all in love with H—I can assert that I am not. But I sympathize with him; I trust him to some extent; even separated like this, there are times when I recall him—he must occupy a portion of my mind. We might become those who cannot stay apart even while knowing we're unhappy." While continuing to think this intensely, she grew afraid of contemplating things too far ahead—of considering matters she wished wouldn't come to pass—and covered her ears as if frightened before burrowing into her futon.

"What! What’s there to worry about? As long as I stay resolute, things will conclude smoothly—and if we were both to become infatuated, then so be it if that fulfills whichever version of love I’ve been yearning for. But one must never show half-heartedness—as long as I always maintain that resolve, it will suffice. If that’s how it is, then while living this way, something like romance likely won’t blossom—but that too is fine."

Even as I tried not to think, I found myself thinking such things.

“Ahh…” With a faint smile, Chiyoko fell asleep just like that. When she awoke from a nightmare of being cast into a deep, deep valley by an invisible force alongside H, dawn had fully broken. Feeling an unpleasant sensation of being shown her own future—and futures that should never come to pass—she watched the slowly undulating sea surface and the white sails billowing nonchalantly.

The next day and the day after that too, Chiyoko spent her days with a heavy heart that felt as though split in two. Every time the weary sea let out a yawn of satiety, "My face has turned red, and we've already stayed over twenty days—it's about time we returned. If we stay shut up like this any longer, we'll turn into fools." She would say this while accosting her mother, whose face bore the weariness of someone who, much like herself, had to strive to protect her two children and various other matters amidst strangers.

“That’s fine too—I’ve grown tired of staying here as well. Let’s return in four or five days.” Even the maid, who had seemed utterly indifferent, looked pleased when she heard this. “Young Mistress, I’ve really…” was all she managed to say. Having endured considerable hardships since her marriage while navigating society’s demands, Mother too found herself unaccustomed to inn life; combined with her proud disposition and lofty heart, this trip brought her unseen hardships.

While wanting to present her young daughter as neatly groomed and beautiful as possible, she would grow so uneasy whenever men turned their gaze toward her or made remarks that she even felt compelled to keep her closely sheltered.

She alone fretted over needless worries—whether the small children might venture into the sea or tumble and scar their foreheads—and with a mind already verging on neurasthenia, tending to each of these concerns proved both agonizing and something she had to force herself to endure. To tell the truth, Mother had grown weary of the sea even before Chiyoko did; yet despite the fact that the very person she had brought never said she disliked it nor appeared particularly unwell, she felt that suggesting they return would seem rather irresponsible.

“Let’s go back now.” Mother had been waiting for her to say this.

They decided to depart on the very next day after placing a call to Tokyo. Chiyoko seemed even happier than when she had first arrived there. Her eyes gleaming pitch-black with a healthy, capricious complexion, she even assisted her mother and the maid with their sluggish packing. The previous night had left her heart so buoyant that she spent it wide-eyed until morning. She intently listened to the innkeeper couple’s polite farewells and the children’s parting words before boarding the train to Kozu and transferring to the steam locomotive.

Rocked by the motion, Chiyoko looked back on the overly hurried manner of their departure and recalled various things. On that day when the inn’s maid had been doing my hair and had dropped what she was holding—back then—now—she repeated to herself as though it were all long past, recalling her final trip to Komine, the matter of the letters, and then Tatsuchan’s recent— “Goodbye—see you again.” The words he had spoken came back to her.

"In my flustered state, I had merely lightly held onto Tatsuchan’s head, but—" Chiyoko still felt there was something she was forgetting and still lacking. While casually chatting with the children and her mother, Chiyoko watched the increasingly metropolitan scenery of the town with a bright, radiant face.

“Mother, isn’t this wonderful? I’ve regained my health and can return to Tokyo—” From time to time she would say such things, shrugging her shoulders or raising her eyebrows. Chiyoko thought that even smiling back each time their eyes met—as the not-very-old British woman sitting in the corner occasionally glanced her way, smiling suggestively and gesturing—was something that made her heart feel glad.

When she arrived at Shimbashi and reached for the door, among those who had come to greet them she first spotted Mr. H's and Mr. Minamoto's heads above the crowd, then noticed her father standing beside them and two rickshaw men rising on their toes. Stretching out her hand, she waved it high two or three times until they all noticed and gathered before the carriage where Chiyoko sat. When Mother was helped down by Father, the children by the rickshaw men, and Chiyoko by Mr. Minamoto and H, such happiness surged through Mother's chest that she nearly burst into song.

“My, I’ve truly come back—truly—” While smiling at each face one by one, she spoke in a sigh-resonant voice. When told that Mother and the children would return by rickshaw and that she too should take one,

“It’s been nearly a month—I’d like to try riding the train!” That Chiyoko acted spoiled and pulled her father along was an unusual sight. Every time they were jostled in the packed train car as it swayed—the bumping against H’s body, the staggering toward her father, the voices of evening paper sellers—all such things seemed delightful to Chiyoko—pleasing to perceive. Even the fifteen or sixteen blocks walked from the train station were imbued with such nostalgic light that when she first saw the pillar of the house where she was born, she wanted to rush over and press her cheek against it.

Expecting it to be thoroughly dusty when she opened her room, she found a new picture frame hanging on the wall, two fresh magazines neatly lined up on the desk, and pale red flowers in a reddish-brown unglazed pot that quivered like trembling faces turned toward Chiyoko, smiling and tilting their heads. She poked at piano keys with her pinky, flipped through books, exchanged jokes with everyone—Chiyoko couldn't sit still even for a moment until outside grew completely dark.

The younger brothers who had been left behind at home, refraining from bodily lifting their overjoyed sister, surrounded her along with the small children and walked around the house in a tight cluster while laughing as if raising a triumphant cheer.

“Your return was truly well-timed—with tomorrow being Sunday, we can stay up late tonight...”

Mr. H and Mr. Minamoto, who had come together, saw everyone’s cheerful faces and said such things while smiling.

After dinner, when everyone was seated in a circle, Chiyoko stood up and went around to each person, "You’ve gotten tanned." "Your hands seem to have grown larger." While making such comments, she moved about, scrutinizing their faces and bodies. "Ah, Father, your bald spot has grown a little!" "Oh, Masachan, you—" The person being addressed also looked pleased. When she came before Mr. H, "You haven’t changed a bit from before, have you?" she said, then turned to Mr. Minamoto beside him and

“It seems you’ve been studying so hard you’re turning into my successor!” Making such comments while teasing him about his diligence had made her feel completely detached from herself. When her father went to bathe and her mother tended to their younger siblings until only three remained together—Chiyoko lowered her voice into a hushed murmur.

“These days, the seaside has become so quiet it might drive a sensitive person mad if they stayed too long—yet it still holds such rich, glowing colors and fragrances, don’t you think?” “Oh, there were moments I truly wanted to return—it felt like my heart was torn in two.” “Now that I think of it, staying quietly at home might have been better. Without even observing the people at the same inn, I ended up wasting quite a lot of time.”

“That’s precisely what’s good about it,” said Mr. H, gazing intently at Chiyoko’s face. “Just look—your cheeks have color now, and your eyes seem perfectly healthy.” Chiyoko held both Mr. H’s and Mr. Minamoto’s hands in hers, raising them to shoulder height and lowering them again. She had become so lighthearted that she could frolic about doing such meaningless things. Two days later, Chiyoko began attending school again. Every teacher and every friend—

“Oh, you came!” and “Oh, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? You came!” She was met with remarks such as these. And from that very day onward, she attended school every single day with apparent vigor, though sometimes with a pale face from lack of sleep.

H came promptly about every other day. The routine of him arriving past six o'clock and talking well into the night had become customary in this household. When H visited, he always left at eleven thirty without exception; the family called this fixed departure time their designated hour. The five months since Chiyoko's return from Odawara passed swiftly without any notable developments. During this period, H and Chiyoko's family visited Enoshima together, occasionally attended theater performances, and went to concerts. With each outing, H and Chiyoko—along with those surrounding them—gradually became more familiar. H even reached the point of consulting Chiyoko's mother about various intricate financial matters.

As H came more frequently, the occasions when they were alone together became more frequent. Yet Chiyoko neither particularly welcomed such occurrences nor found them disagreeable. She simply regarded them as ordinary matters.

On a balmy day when chrysanthemums bloomed in full splendor, Chiyoko's mother casually remarked to her: "Women must fret over even the most trifling matters... And someone your age especially needs constant reminders from others—so you must exercise caution in every single thing. Never let gossiping maids or anyone else find cause to chatter about you."

“So even when Mr. H comes over, you mustn’t chatter or joke around too much—those people will just spread silly gossip about it, you know.” Chiyoko listened silently, but she knew both the reason behind her mother’s words and the motive for bringing up such a matter. After being told such things, Chiyoko came to know how much her mother was worrying about her and Mr. H, and to what extent she was imagining things.

"Mother might think Mr. H and I have gotten involved somehow. But even if she does think that, there's no need for me to make special efforts to prove otherwise—such matters become clear naturally in time..." I kept thinking such thoughts afterward. And so she kept writing what she had started around that time, though it remained disjointed. Koko, who had been close with Chiyoko, grew increasingly distant—understandably so, given she hadn't sent a single letter during Chiyoko's seaside stay—and thus their connection was gradually thinning.

“Hey, Koko, don’t you think you’ve been changing quite a bit lately? And then…”

Looking at Koko’s small forehead with her bangs swept high, Chiyoko had made such remarks not just once or twice. With each recurrence of such matters, their hearts gradually advanced toward distant places. Koko now threw herself into domestic affairs—preparations for marriage she had never previously prioritized—appearing to have completely forgotten all she once knew and contemplated. What little she retained was merely adherence to prior knowledge, growing ever more distant from literature until her passion for it had diminished to near extinction compared to its former vigor.

Chiyoko watched those people with sorrowful eyes as she steadfastly pursued the path she ought to follow. "Female friendships—particularly among women our age—are such trifling things, don't you agree? They form in an instant and dissolve just as quickly, without so much as a wisp of lingering attachment." "And they're so obsessed with marrying off that they don't even realize they're becoming fools, I tell you."

“In another year or two, I might end up all alone.” There were times when she would tell Mr. H about such things—stories of her childhood friend from elementary school days—and he would rejoice as if they were his own. Chiyoko, who was prone to becoming absorbed in things, found herself constantly preoccupied with Koko’s recent behavior, her mind ceaselessly circling back to it. On the other hand, she found herself constantly thinking about Moko, who seriously cared for her. On a day of yellowish sunlight that felt irritating to the skin, Mr. H—who had come in the afternoon—found himself alone with Chiyoko in the Western-style house as both her parents were out. They laughed at trivial things, gazed at each other with thoughtful expressions before lapsing into silence, played the piano, and sang songs.

“The children are quiet—it’s such a nice day, isn’t it? So settled...” “It’s calm—truly, isn’t it?” “Miss Chiyoko, let me tell you something good…” “Please do.” “The other night when you weren’t out—remember? When we went to Nakanishiya, Mother said something then too.” “‘Do you have any thoughts about Chiyoko’s situation? As I’d mentioned before—it would be wise to at least make some arrangement already… I even said so when I met Mr. Chūta… He’s an engineering man but has some literary taste—what do you think?’ she said.”

“When I said, ‘I don’t need to do such things yet,’ she went ‘That’s not true at all!’ right, Miss Chiyoko…”

Chiyoko listened without reddening her face or moving a muscle, laughing with her whole being exposed as if left wide open. As H spoke—sometimes thinning his voice, sometimes flushing red—Chiyoko found him rather pitiable. "Oh, did she say that? How prematurely efficient!" "But even if you say such things, you can't remain a Miss your whole life." "Well, I can't say whether I will or won't—if there were someone I wanted to go to badly enough to die for, then I suppose I'd go..."

“Is that so? Are you sure?” “Yes, absolutely.” “Then what if there were someone who wanted you so badly they could die?” “Oh, stop it! Who even knows how many people have used such trite phrases since ancient times? And when you talk like that, you sound like some country bumpkin wearing thick makeup…” “Oh, you think that way?” “Yes, I do think so. People these days—when the woman they love says ‘With my life…’—would immediately retort, ‘How many times have you said that before?’”

“How many times have you said that?”

“They’ve ended up sounding so dismissive...” “…………” H was silently gazing at the large Madonna painting. Chiyoko too, feigning ignorance, looked away, tapped her foot in rhythm, and kept repeating a nonsensical little song.

A brief moment stood long within the silence between them. "Are you angry?"

H turned and looked at Chiyoko, who kept rhythm with a faint smile playing on her lips. "No, nothing at all—" "Then come closer over here, won't you? And tell me something." H's voice clung like syrup as it traveled into Chiyoko's ears. "What should I talk about?"

“Anything you want to talk about.”

“I’m not quite sure what I want to talk about right now—” “Then let me say it, okay?” H shifted his weight, took a deep breath, and began to speak. “Miss Chiyoko—ever since I went to Numazu the other day and even after returning, there have been people all around trying to arrange marriages for me. But I have resolutely turned down each one without ever once feeling regretful or pathetic about it.” “That is—well, I am waiting until the woman whom the heavenly God specially made as someone I can love appears before me.” “I do believe that person will appear—and I wish for them to stand before me as soon as possible……”

He let out an even deeper, more earnest sigh than before. “So you’re waiting?” “Yes, that’s truly how it is—God must have surely created such a person.” “But such precious things wouldn’t just casually appear so readily, would they?” “But if she were to appear, you’d be happy, wouldn’t you? These days, instead of that, there are women—and men just like them—that Satan specially made for men, you know.”

“Is that so…”

“Don’t you think so, Mr. H? It’s already been a year since I first met you—quite a few things have changed in that time, you know. My height’s increased; I’ve become just a smidge cleverer; written and read all sorts of things—my head alone ages two years for every one that passes, no joking matter.” “How true—it’s already been a year. This past year has differed substantially in substance from all my previous ones.”

“First of all—being allowed to grow closer to your household step by step, having your mother and you become both my confidants and comforters—I can’t even begin to express how overjoyed this makes me. For someone like me who must remain alone and endure hardships, having a household like yours is the greatest blessing imaginable...” “Anyone would be happy to have more people grow close to them.”

“But someone like you—loved by everyone—you wouldn’t feel it so harshly, would you?” “If I had to choose—well, the pain of parting with someone you were even moderately close to cuts far deeper than the joy of gaining three new intimates, you know.” “Anyone hates it when someone who was by their side leaves them—truly…” “But you are truly a fortunate person!” “Hey, Mr. H—you’ve known me for over a year now! Why do you still call me ‘Miss Chiyoko’?”

“Why? Because if I were to call you Chiyo-chan, you’d surely get angry…” “If it were someone I just met, of course I wouldn’t just not get angry—I wouldn’t even look their way. But now it’s different. Come on, try calling me Chiyo-chan. If it feels strange, go back to how it was before. And if it’s fine, just keep it like that.” “Chiyo-chan—” “It’s not strange at all—in fact, that’s much better. Will you call me that from now on? Right?”

“Well, Chiyo-chan—” H called Chiyoko’s name and listened intently; Chiyoko too feigned attentiveness as though hearing a stranger’s name. “Hey, we’ve become rather close, haven’t we?” “Is that so? I think you don’t open up to me that much.” “That’s just the sort of person I am—someone who can love dearly yet intensely dislike at the same time. Even if I open up, there might still be things you’ll never understand.”

“Can we become even closer than this?” “I certainly can.” “I don’t know—if I were to die tomorrow or the day after, what would you do?” “There’d be no such thing as us growing closer or not anymore.” “But being plain tea-drinking friends as an old man and old woman wouldn’t be so bad either, you know.” “There’s no chance of us growing apart, is there?”

“I don’t know about that either—there probably isn’t such a chance. It’s better not to make too many promises like that.”

“Then I’ll make the promise alone—no matter what happens, I’ll never fall out with you…” With these words, H made a small sign of the cross on his forehead. “I like you, you know. So if I were to die while you’re still healthy, I’ll call out to you. And when it’s your time to die, I’ll come to you.” "But when the time actually comes, you’ll tremble, won’t you? I’m sure of it." “Yes, I am afraid of dying—until the person given by God appears before me...”

“When they appear, will you drop dead together with them?” “You shouldn’t make light of things so—what I’m saying is in earnest, you know.” “So am I your destiny? Are you matching yours to mine? What an unpleasant notion.” “…………”

Chiyoko had come to loathe both pretending not to understand what H was thinking despite grasping it perfectly, and expressing her own heart—perched unnaturally high—through words that couldn’t convey even a tenth of its depth. Her head turned into a tangled mess as she leaned back against the chair. Her head grew hot and throbbing, her body beginning to float through empty air. "Is today an ill-fated day? My head's condition has become most strange."

“You’re pointing out the irony in what I said, aren’t you?”

“That’s not what I meant. Check your forehead—it must be feverish. I’m telling the truth.” “Is that so? What could be wrong?” H paced quietly about the room. At intervals he gave light little coughs or paused to observe Chiyoko’s expression—troubled yet willful. “You never lay anything fully bare—like some dutiful daughter—”

Chiyoko pressed down again and again on the lump welling up in her chest and said. “Yes, because I have to act that way…” H, standing before Chiyoko, saw her tears falling; from his own eyes too, tears began to spill without reason. “You’re becoming quite hysterical—” He said just this. And then he sat down in the chair before Chiyoko and gazed into her crimson-glowing eyes.

“Just now, I suddenly felt so terribly sorry for you—and then the tears came right away, that’s all…” Chiyoko felt so unbearably sorry for H that she wanted to cry out loud like a three-year-old.

“You truly are a pitiable person, but I suppose a time will come when good things await you.”

In a voice like that of an aged Christian, Chiyoko said. "Do you feel sorry for me?" "If that's really... then please be completely open with me now." "No, you know—I think it's best for us to stay just this close." "If we were to grow distant, it would be sorrowful, and if we were to become too close, it seems something unfortunate would await us in the end... When sad times come, it's better for us to comfort each other and remain friends until we grow old." "If we become too close, we'll both end up having to do things reluctantly and harbor feelings we'd rather not have..."

“What you’re thinking and what you’re saying contradict each other, don’t they? You must want us to grow as close as possible—just like I do—and yet—” “I might feel that way, but I detest making those I cherish—my dearest companions—endure sorrow or hardship on my account.”

“It’s not as if something bad is fated to happen.” “But most things are fated—I’m a woman who can’t stay still and coddles her selfish whims whenever they strike, you see. I’m not someone who can stifle or tidy up her feelings just because we ought to be together…” “Will you stay alone until you die?” “Even now I’m not alone. Around my house and around my body—there are countless invisible presences.” “And powerful things have gathered here—by believing in them and conversing with them, I can spend my life, whether sixty years or fifty. That alone brings me the greatest happiness.”

“And with that, I am satisfied, you know.” “Listen, Chiyo-chan—I’m going to lay everything bare now. Please don’t be angry and hear me out.” “You see—I love you so deeply, and I believe you possess everything I could ever love. I want us to stay inseparable for our entire lives—” “Even if I were to make that request, you are unwilling.” H turned red in the face and said.

Chiyoko, who had been listening silently, found fresh tears beginning to well up once more. "Why do you think that way? It's because you don't fully know me yet that you can think that way—you must know more of my bad points, you know." "I will surely refuse you—but I do like you, you know—it's precisely because I like you that I'm saying this." "Then does that mean we absolutely must remain friends until we die? I..."

“As your friend, I might make a good woman—but I wasn’t born to become anything more than that—it’s for the best—” “But we can’t possibly go our separate ways, can we?” “No—that could never be done—if it were, I would grieve…” “Then must I stay content with things exactly as they are now?” “It’s better for us both that way.”

At that moment, both H and Chiyoko were on the verge of tears.

"Why is he only looking at me so intently? If they get too close to me—Shinobu and Mr.Minamoto—they've forgotten it'll bring them unhappiness... Oh, oh—I can't bear this anymore!" Chiyoko thought this.

"Why is this Chiyo-chan like this? Not resembling a young woman at all—seeming lost in thought—yet being an emotional creature... I can only wait silently for her heart to perhaps change." H swallowed back welling tears and gazed at Chiyoko’s upturned face—her expression both contemplative and rigidly self-contained, as if she were steadily crushing her own heart. H began to feel dizzy.

“Chiyoko-san, you—” H collapsed onto the desk. Chiyoko lowered her gaze that had been looking upward and looked at H. White fingers covered his face; jet-black supple hair trembled gently. Just as H’s hair trembled, Chiyoko’s heart trembled too. “Mr. H, please don’t go this far… It’s not something a man should have to do… I’m beginning to feel so strange…”

Chiyoko was gently holding H's head. In the mind of Chiyoko, who sat motionless, images of Mr. Minamoto’s demeanor and Shinobu’s letter lined up and passed by. “Ugh, no—I don’t have such childish feelings that I’d blush or tear up over every little thing like that—it’d be best if I just vanished somewhere, gone to a place with people I don’t know—but even if I went, in this world it’d still be the same fleeting illusion—ahhh, I truly—”

Chiyoko wanted to push everyone aside and disappear somewhere.

Chiyoko felt such an indescribable emotion that she wanted to cry aloud. "Why hadn't Mr. H stayed exactly as he was—a motionless artwork that neither ate nor slept?" "If only he'd remained like that for me, I might have been able to fall utterly in love—"

Suddenly，Chiyoko even found herself thinking such things。 He stayed until past ten at night， “Farewell—I bid you sweet dreams。” Having said this and turned to leave，H walked along the dark path with his head bowed as though bearing some profound sorrow—a sight that suddenly made Chiyoko feel emotionally fragile。 We’ve come to not know what to do。

Chiyoko muttered softly and ended up hardly sleeping that night. Even after that, Chiyoko knew there were many times when her mother pressed her ear against the glass door to listen during her moments alone with H. H also knew. At such times, the two would exchange smiles with faintly lonely expressions. “She’s worrying needlessly!” There were also times when they inserted such remarks into their conversations.

Chiyoko, during times when she had nothing to do or sank motionlessly into deep contemplation, “Among the three people surrounding me, I like H the most—and so he’s the one who has the most of what I love!” “Mr. H goes on like that every single day with those sad-looking eyes—will he keep living all alone from now on too…” She found herself unexpectedly thinking such things.

“Am I in love with H? If so—”

She even found herself thinking such things.

And so, Chiyoko began to doubt her own heart each time Mr. H came. “Hey, Mother—what do you think of Mr. H?” Even when Chiyoko asked how Mr. H appeared in her mother’s eyes that had seen so many people, “He doesn’t drink or smoke—has a worn-out demeanor and has faced hardships—a bit reserved, but I suppose he’s a good person at heart.”

she said.

“It’s so pitiful how frail he is—why must he be like that? He’s truly someone who might end up dying from nothing but hardships and sorrows—”

Because her mother kept saying such things, Chiyoko’s suspicions grew ever deeper, and her heart’s pity for H continued to develop. I know misfortune will occur, yet here I am still heading toward it—must I become a plaything of the god of fate? But it doesn’t matter—I’ll fight as hard as I can; if I lose, that’s when it’ll be decided.

"What! As if I could be in love with H! That's for the best!" With a vexed expression, she also thought such things. Chiyoko gathered up H's flaws as much as she could and pondered them. "He has such habits. He lacks mental composure. He doesn't share my level of interest in literature and art." The moment she thought this,

"That’s exactly because all those sad and bitter experiences from his youth had turned him into such a person."

By the time this thought came to her, her heart had already turned to sympathy. “Don’t you agree it’s best for us to stay good friends?”

There were also times when she said such things upon meeting H. “Mother, you should find a good woman for Mr. H. Otherwise, it won’t do.” “I tried suggesting exactly that the other day when this came up, but he outright refuses... He must have someone else in mind...” Chiyoko heard this, grimaced, and shook her head. “Mr. Shinobu has sent another one of those letters again.” “What could he be thinking… He truly doesn’t consider the consequences at all…”

“If someone who writes those letters truly considered the consequences beforehand, they wouldn’t have even conceived of such a thing from the start—but honestly, I’ve had enough of this. Perhaps I should just enter a convent!” “That would indeed be for the best…”

Mother laughed and did not take it seriously. “Mr. Shinobu—despite being so clueless about the world—all he knows is how to write those kinds of letters—” Whenever Chiyoko went to see him, he would intercept her with trembling eyes—

“Chiyo-chan.”

The memory of how he would tentatively call out and blush made her feel sick to her stomach. "You’re being far too presumptuous to fall in love."

She even thought about saying that the next time they met and would sometimes let out a thoroughly derisive laugh. “I wonder if I should just cut my hair short like a man’s and adopt a male guise.” “Aaaaah—though I do think it would be best if I just grew old quickly—” “I’ve grown utterly weary from receiving too many special favors only the young can obtain—I want to be alone in a quiet place to think my own thoughts.” There were times when Chiyoko felt so strongly that she wanted to flee deep into the mountains. She would also imagine the joy of quietly reading and writing in a mountain hut while strolling among the trees.

The fact that H, as if resolutely waiting for the right moment, did not repeat what he had once said to Chiyoko instead made her feel compelled to dwell on it. “Mr. H, we are gradually becoming inseparable friends, aren’t we?” But there was no doubt they were friends. “We must ensure we don’t make each other unhappy—don’t you agree?” Chiyoko lived a life overflowing with things to ponder, and as if overwhelmed by thought, she uttered these words too.

“Since I cannot love passionately, I’ve resolved not to love at all; the path I walk requires but one direction.” “Whether Mr. H remains alone or finds companionship matters not to me.” “It’s because God fashioned me this way—to obsess over myself unsparingly, to sacrifice men’s hearts, and forge something nobler and brighter—that I must press onward!”

“It’s permissible for me to treat you harshly—but I must earnestly appreciate that you hold such feelings for me.” I like Mr. H—so rather than falling in love or such things, we should support each other and create something nobler. Chiyoko thought such things with her broad, man-like forehead. And so, day after day, she wrote as much as she could and read as much as she could.

It was a cold evening. When H came, Chiyoko spoke to him with an exceedingly cheerful expression. “Mr. H, lately I’ve completely done away with things that make me hesitate or force me to endure unpleasant feelings…” “Why? Did something make you hesitate?”

“Yes, there was. If I say this, you will understand, you see.” “You see, I’ve been thinking that way lately.” “I cannot become passionately in love like an ordinary woman—nor like a girl.” “But I have found something far higher and more radiant than love between people—something waiting for me with open arms—I—” “It can be asserted that this path allows me to live a life harmonized with my true sense of purpose—and it can also be said to make my heart overflow with radiance. Any woman can fall in love—but not every woman has something awaiting her on a higher plane. I believe in that truth, and I believe in myself.”

Chiyoko clasped her hands and looked slightly downward as she spoke, her eyes quiet and serene like those of a Christian beholding God. "So then—what did I do...? What was it that I found...?" "You will surely find something worthy soon—there's no doubt about that. When one earnestly does what they must, something awaits them with open arms." "From now on, we must help each other, live in happiness together, and create a life unlike any other."

Chiyoko said this in an uncharacteristic tone unlike her usual self. While feeling as if a light were shining above her head, Chiyoko stared fixedly at Mr. H's face. "Ah—God..."

Mr. H kept his eyes closed and his head bowed for a long time without raising it. "If you would only not forget me, that might truly bring happiness; we could get along well and be deeply thoughtful—" After standing for a while and lifting his face, Mr. H—as if reverently presenting Chiyoko’s beloved white forehead and thick dark hair—spoke with a faint smile playing at the corners of his mouth. As if reborn with new life, the two resolved to forget all the uncertainties they had harbored about each other up until that day.

Chiyoko was no longer uncertain at her core.

Day and night, she wrote and read with earnest, shining eyes.

For Mr. H, whenever he saw Chiyoko’s face—seemingly forgotten yet unforgettable—he felt compelled to repeat what he had said before. When he saw her composed face and eyes that seemed perpetually lost in thought, “Let’s forget.” He could not bring himself to repeat those words he had uttered, nor could he address her demeanor again. “When the time comes…” While clinging to that sole hope, Mr. H began visiting Chiyoko’s house more frequently than before. Each time he came, he grew sad,

"But she still cares for me—she said my face looked pale or my eyes had a troubled look. Now I must content myself with that. 'When the time comes—' he kept repeating. 'When the time comes—' While repeating it in his heart, H had also thought—there was someone named Mr. Minamoto. 'Has she been taken by another…?'"

While wishing to be with Mr. Minamoto, he often went to Chiyoko’s house. "Today Mr. Minamoto is here too, you see." On the day when Chiyoko came out to greet him and said this, Mr. H tightened the muscles around his eyes, “Right...”

Having said that, he looked around his surroundings. Chiyoko spoke more to H than to Mr. Minamoto, "I've been having such strange days lately, you see—is your head bothering you at all?"

He also heard such things. To H, it remained incomprehensible—this woman’s mentality that strove not to fall in love even while showing him concerned sympathy, all while believing such restraint would inevitably lead to unhappiness. “After all, she’s somehow similar to her mother in disposition—” H could not understand this woman who, despite being emotional, contemplated even future prospects. Her father and mother— “It’s a life you only live once—you should do everything within your power. If both body and mind become healthy, we won’t refuse to let you study abroad either—”

Even words like these, Chiyoko did not take to mean merely that. "I’m not some ordinary woman who fusses over love." "I can achieve something far more noble." "And I will definitely make it happen!" Even when moving just one hand, Chiyoko kept thinking this way.